On a morning of birding, the only letdown is the absence of woodpeckers
A bird walk with the Mecklenburg Audubon Society is a great way to awaken the senses and rediscover nature
The following article appeared in the Nov. 6, 2024 edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
Looking for a way to unplug and tune out the stressors? Bird watching may be the nature fix you didn’t know you needed.
Birding is a cooperative endeavor, with members of a bird walk pointing out what they see and helping each other spot birds in sometimes hard-to-find places. Janet Palmer (purple jacket) led a group earlier this week with the Mecklenburg Audubon Society.
by Cristina Bolling
If there’s a key nutrient missing in many of our lives right now, it’s likely Vitamin N: Nature. We’ve been ignoring the call of the wild that invites us to put down our phones, step away from the laptop, get out of the car, and venture into the territories of creatures that don’t give a hoot about our human stressors.
A good way to get a Vitamin N infusion? Bird watching.
If you’re a newbie like me, a bird walk with an expert may be just the prescription, like the beginner’s bird walk I took earlier this week at McAlpine Creek Park with Janet Palmer of the Mecklenburg Audubon Society, and three other bird watchers.
Together, we watched for warblers among the treetops, witnessed an egret eating a fishy breakfast, heard the constant cries of the red-shouldered hawk and tuned our ears for the squeaky-dog-toy sound of the illusive nuthatch and the typically easy-to-spot woodpecker.
Birding is like a treasure hunt that forces you to engage your senses of sight and hearing and be fully present in a way that not many other activities do.
Here are a few of my favorite observations:
🦅 Bird-watchers are huge list-makers, and yes, there are apps for that. As we walked, Palmer ticked off the birds we saw on an app called eBird, which kept an accounting of what we were seeing and hearing and can be shared with others in real time.
Avid bird watchers keep all kinds of lists, Palmer said, like lists of birds they see in each county and lists from every trip they take. Palmer said one friend keeps a “bathroom window list” of birds she spies from her bathroom window. Laura Blakesley, another veteran bird watcher who was on Palmer’s bird walk, said her husband keeps a list of birds he sees “doing the wild thing” (having bird sex).
Mecklenburg Audubon Society does a “Christmas bird count” that involves volunteers going out all over the region to count birds in various places, and ends with a “tally up dinner” afterward.
Another app Palmer used was Merlin Bird ID, which used her cellphone microphone to identify what bird was singing or chirping. She also used Merlin to play recordings of certain birds’ songs so I could learn to identify them. (Merlin is so accurate, Palmer said, that playing certain chirps too loud on the app could scare away wood ducks that are easily spooked.)
🦅 Some birds distinguish themselves by their cries, others by how they fly. Woodpeckers have an undulating style of flight because of how they pull their wings back, which makes them easy to spot in the air. (Although none revealed themselves to us during our walk.)
Palmer and Blakesley say they never tire from the winter wren’s song. “They’re not that flashy looking, but their song in the spring is just so beautiful,” Palmer said. “Hike up Profile Trail on Grandfather Mountain. This will be your soundtrack.”
🦅 Squeeze every drop from the experience by watching for the “parking lot birds.” Palmer and Blakesley both said they’ve had some great bird sightings while walking to their cars after a bird walk — including seeing the incredibly striking pileated woodpecker, with a flaming red crest and white stripes down its black neck.
“It’s hilarious when you go on some trips and you’re looking for a bird and looking for a bird, and then you finally come back to your car, and there it is, in the damn parking lot,” Blakesley laughed.
It’s a good lesson in bird watching as in life — the best things could be just overhead, but we’ll miss them if we stop paying attention.
🦅 Bird watching is a welcoming pastime. Anyone is welcome on a Mecklenburg Audubon Society bird walk (you don’t have to be a member), and while there are beginner bird walks like the one I took, new members can join on any walk.
Walks are typically limited to about a dozen people, so emailing a walk leader is important (their email addresses are on the list of walks on the website). Newbie birders shouldn’t be shy to tell the leader that it’s their first time, Palmer said. Binoculars are helpful, and some leaders will have extra pairs for new bird watchers to borrow during the walk.
We spotted more than 20 types of birds during our 2-hour trek, but we never did see a woodpecker, much to Palmer’s surprise and disappointment. I took it as a sign to keep the binoculars handy and head back out another day.
Cristina Bolling is managing editor of the Charlotte Ledger: cristina@cltledger.com
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Business manager: Brie Chrisman