lifers: cliff swallow & least flycatcher

When Julia called to tell me about The Swimming Hole, one of my first thoughts was the birds. My instinct was to pull up eBird and check out the area for any potential lifers, but I held off. Lately I’ve been practicing what I call “letting birding happen to me” rather than going birding. There’s a great satisfaction in just allowing myself to feel the surprise of each individual rather than holding a list in my hand ready to record at a moments notice.

For instance, as I write this, I can hear a mocking bird outside my window mimicking all kinds of things, like a red-winged blackbird, a carolina wren, and even a bald eagle. It would be neat sometime to sit and write out every bird I hear a mocking bird mimic. When I finally made my arrival to the residency, I of course, immediately noticed the birds. There were catbirds right where I parked my car, and barn swallows dancing around the yard. I headed in to get acquainted with my new loves and kept an ear on the birds throughout the evening. The following morning when we set out to begin our project I had this empty notebook I had made with no real plan for it when I packed it. Birds were going nuts… a chorus? cacophony? scream fest? They were at it. In the notebook I was desperately trying to focus on writing what we had been discussing. Just to try and get the birds out of my head, I decided to jump seven pages ahead and start a list. All the birds I’d identify while we were there. I thought it was for me, for my own notes, but the book became an archive of the project on its own and once ‘finished’ will be posted back to site.

my life list

eBird Checklist