Bob the Birder

Kirtland's Warbler (Cornell)

For those of you who know me, you know that I have occasionally let my temper get the best of me.  A certain fist-meets-wall story comes to mind.  The wall won.  That said, I can only remember one time in particular in which I was really ticked off during birding.  

I must have been 12 or 13 years old.  We were birding during the height of spring migration, and the warblers were falling out of the sky.  Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Bay-breasted, Chesnut-sided, Cape May, Blackburnian, and even the elusive Hooded Warbler was spotted.  We honestly could have looked in any direction and there would be a beautiful neo-tropical migrant flitting around.  The first bird of the day was a stunning male Canada Warbler.  I stood a couple feet off the road just east of the main boardwalk entrance at Magee Marsh.  There used to be a broken down metal fence on the outer edge of the trees.  The Canada was hopping up and down, catching bugs and investigating his surroundings.  I walked right up to the fence and watched this bird as it got closer and closer to me.  On several occasions it nearly landed on my feet.  

As we continued on to the boardwalk our list grew faster than we could write them down.  Perhaps 100 yards in, there used to be an area with several fallen down trees and bramble draped over the top of them (The state has cleared away and cut so much down at Magee and other places that I wonder if the birds will even recognize it anymore).  My parents and I stood at this spot and tallied several more species.  Suddenly, I saw a bird under the brambles that looked like a Canada Warbler, but it wasn’t a Canada Warbler.  It’s back was striated instead of a smooth bluish-gray.  It had no necklace, but did exhibit some black streaking down the side of it’s chest.  I frantically looked through my field guide because I was looking at was a Kirtland’s Warbler!

When I looked up from my field guide, to my astonishment, the bird had vanished.  I located my dad among the many birders and told him what I had seen.  As I was relaying this information to my father, a bespectacled roly poly little man butted into the conversation.  “You saw a Canada Warbler.  A Kirtland’s is very rare.  A typical mistake for a beginner.”  I told the man that I had seen several Canada Warblers earlier in the day and that this bird was not a Canada.  He continued to doubt my sighting, and waddled away down the boardwalk.  

Now I know it may seem silly to get mad for something like this, but imagine you were 100% sure of a decision and someone told you that you were an idiot.  That’s how I felt.  I wanted to sock that guy right in the face.  Instead, I continued on the boardwalk and perhaps had my best day of birding ever.

A couple days later my mom excitedly told me that the National Audubon Society confirmed several sightings of a Kirtland’s Warbler at Magee Marsh over the past weekend.  This news was bittersweet.  I was happy to hear it, but I wish Bob was around so I could rub it in his face!  Oh...I forgot to mention...his name is Bob.  Bob the Birder.  And I see Bob every year during migration.  He’s getting older now and carries a little chair he can rest on as he meanders down the boardwalk with his wife...Mrs. Bob.  He has become more of a humorous joke than a source of frustration over the years.  My Uncle Jack knows the story and every time we see Bob he starts elbowing me.  We all call him my nemesis.  

The truth is, however, that Bob is actually a fairly generous person.  Instead of browbeating novice birders, I have seen him help out many beginners over the years.  Perhaps he was just having a bad day on the boardwalk oh so many years ago.  Perhaps he had never seen a Kirtland’s and was jealous.  Perhaps a little kid took a comment from a stranger a little too personally.  Nah...I’m going with the jealous thing.  Happy birding!

Bird Count: 146

Recent Notables: Short-eared Owl

Picture from:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Kirtland’s Warbler (website). Retrieved from http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Kirtlands_Warbler/id