The joy of bird watching

My latest hobby is bird watching. Did you know that crows and parrots are not the only birds around ?. Yeah I know, I was astounded as well. Apparently, there are many more species. So apart from crows and parrots, I can now identify blue birds (“Hey look, blue bird !!”), green birds (“Wow, green bird !!”) and ostriches. Though there are not many ostriches near where I stay, I am sure if one of them strays in from Africa, I will be able to recognize it (“Hey look, Mallika Sherawat !!, Oh wait, those are ostrich legs”)

I am sure you are just as amazed as I am by this incredible knowledge that I seem to have amassed on birds. All thanks to this field guide I bought a few weeks ago. The only problem is that the damn birds never appear in the order that they are illustrated in the book. And there always seems to be some subtle difference between what’s illustrated and the bird that I am looking at like a white spot near the tail that’s not there in the book. For all I know, the bird might have sat on a piece of chalk and here am really excited that it’s a new species and will probably be named after me or my pen name ( 'newbirdus apremeyas' ) but no such luck so far.

So during the weekend, I go around with a pair of binoculars around my neck looking intently at the bird on the wire only to realize that it’s a crow (“Hey look, black bird”) and also realize that there are a bunch of people looking intently at me wondering what kind of a dork looks at a crow with binoculars. “I am trying to find out if it’s a male or a female”, I say trying to avoid the embarrassment. They laugh. Next time, I am going to use the binoculars on them.

The basic idea of bird identification is that when you spot a bird, you rapidly go through every page of your field guide and try to match the bird with every picture in the book and the moment you get a match, you have the bird. I understand this is not the most efficient method and it can get frustrating and hence it is important to buy at least fifteen field guides, I am already on my fourth. It is not easy and at least on two occasions, I matched women in saris to peacocks, not to mention the risk of looking at them through my binoculars.

No folks, bird watching has its risks and it is not for the faint hearted. But when done right, which I am working on, it can be a really fulfilling experience. Oh there, at last I think I see a peacock, where are my binoculars….