You Can't Put a Dead Bird on Your Life List

I became interested in birdwatching when I was pregnant with Ramona and had to give up my bad habits. I took a short hike in Oaks Bottom park and witnessed an osprey with a 4-foot wingspan (aka sea hawk) plucking a fish out of the marsh & taking it back to a nest that rested atop a power pole. I had never been aware that wild animals lived in Portland, and lived here well. I also saw a small owl perching in a tree just off the path, just about 20 yards off of Milwaukee, an extremely busy street. I got enamored of the idea of this whole secret wild life transpiring off the radar of our urban lives, and I bought a book about local birds. A few minutes with the book showed me that I had been blind for years to my surroundings: I used to think all birds in the city were sparrows or robins; I've since learned that some of the brown birds are sparrows, some are wrens, some are woodpeckers. Soon after buying the book I noticed an odd-shaped bird on the telephone pole outside my bedroom window just before it began hammering at the wood--it was a northern flicker, a beautiful, weird looking woodpecker that has sort of become my spirit animal. I am now on the watch for new birds everywhere I go. Let me explain the title of this post: when you become a birder, you start keeping a Life List, which is a list of all of the birds you have ever seen in person. The dean of my department is an avid and accomplished birder, and I learn a lot from talking with him about birds. I ran into him on campus today, and he told me that he had just disposed of the body of an orange-rumped warbler that ran into a window at Bauer Hall. I lamented that I had not seen it as I have never seen this bird before. Then it occurred to me: you have to see the bird out there doing its thing. You can't add a dead bird to your life list.