From the article: Spark Bird
What was your spark bird, the bird that got you interested in birding? Maybe it was a familiar backyard bird you grew to love, a rare bird you were excited to see or the first challenging bird you identified. Share your spark bird and the reason it sparked your desire to be a birder! Share Your Spark Bird
Eastern Kingbird
- While in a Field Biology class at Huntingdon College (Alabama), we were required to compile a collection of various plants and wildlife. Part of my submission was a dead kingbird I found and had to prepare as a museum specimen. [BTW, I named him Elvis...] This led me to want to learn more about this elegant species, its behavior and its life history. I even did an informal research project on Eastern vs Gray Kingbirds during a summer stay at Dauphin Island Sea Lab. While preparing my presentation, I discovered that nesting kingbirds were known to attack small aircraft that flew too near its nest, I was hooked for life.
- —Guest Blaine from Alabama
American Goldfinch and Bald Eagle
- I've always loved nature in general and when my sons were little I had quite a few feeders hanging around our back yard and I gardened to attract butterflies and birds. One little goldfinch kept coming over to our deck and it would land on a foot-high "trellis" by a post and tuck its wings in and sleep while we ate at small table on our deck. My oldest son bought me a field guide and it went on to eagles from there as I have always enjoyed watching them soar and look so majestic!
- —MaesMom
Black-Capped Chickadee
- I spent a year in the infantry in Vietnam. When I returned, another veteran and I felt more comfortable in the woods than we did near busy intersections, crowds, and city noise. So we headed to the rural countryside a couple times each week. It was on these jaunts that my "scientific curiosity" kicked in, and I began wondering what we were seeing. One day we took a canoe down a river to an area we'd not been to before. We tied the canoe to a tree, and scrambled to the top of a steep hill. I was the first to reach the top, and came face to face with a black-capped chickadee on a pine branch a few feet away. He glanced at me nonchalantly and flitted away. It was so mysterious! I was hooked. I bought my first bird field guide the next day, and have been fascinated with feathered creatures ever since.
- —Guest Roger
Red-Shouldered Hawk
- I worked on the third floor with two huge trees outside. A pair of red-shouldered hawks lived there. Saw them hang out, hunt, eat, preen, mate. Loved to hear them call to each other. A friend suggested I start keeping a life list and buy a field guide. My birding self was born. The hawks were followed by the western tanager which was just amazing to me. I'll never forget the birds I enjoyed just outside my office window.
- —Guest Tdogg
California Condor
- Conversation between my wife and me while we were at the Grand Canyon in July, 2010-- My wife: "I saw a California Condor today." Me: "Dear, I think you'll find the California Condor is extinct. And besides, this isn't even California. It was probably a crow." Well, that was just the first of many stupid things I have gone on to say about birds…but thus began my First Year (like a Big Year for Dummies). We went on to attend a presentation by the park rangers on the Condor and became fascinated. It got me looking at other birds, and I immediately became enamored of the Raven (which, it turns out, is also not a crow), who somehow does quite well, thank you very much, in inhospitable desert environments. From that trip on, I have been hooked, birding for several hours every week, participating in the hawk counts, and studying as much as I can. I'd now rather go birding than eat pizza…and that's really saying something!
- —Guest Eric
Eastern Phoebe
- My spark bird was the eastern phoebe (phee-bee). A few years back we had an unfinished overhang covering our back porch. One day I noticed a bird flying in and out all day long building a nest. I didn't have the heart to undo all the hard work she put in to it. When my husband returned home he noticed the bird and the nest almost immediately and decided he was going to get rid of it. After much pleading I was able to talk him out of destroying it. So in the days to come we watched the bird lay her eggs, hatch them, feed and and take care of the baby birds. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the family grow and repeat the whole scenerio again the following years. One thing to beware of, the eggs and baby birds attracted snakes and one year I was on watch much of the time fighting them off only to have bluejays kill the babies. It was very sad especially to watch the mother bird all that day fly up to the nest and back to the ground again searching for her babies.
- —Guest Heidy
Northern Flicker
- Truthfully, there wasn't one bird - I've loved watching and identifying birds since I was a small child. But when I was away at college in the faraway state of Oregon, one day on campus I saw the most enchanting bird moving around a tree trunk and upside down on a limb. I was able to get quite close. It had amazingly perfect, round, jet-black spots, red on the head, startling orange under the wings when it flew - I thought it must be some incredibly rare, amazing bird. None of my friends knew anything about birds, so I had to go to the bookstore and browse through guides till I found what it was. It turned out to be a common sight on campus; sometimes flocks of them would be pecking at the lawn. Eventually I bought my own guide, instead of always going to the bookstore to free-load when I needed an i.d.!
- —drgoodma
Turkey Vulture
- Believe it or not, my spark bird was the turkey vulture. I was sitting on my back patio one summer afternoon when I saw a huge black and silver bird soaring overhead. I watched him circling around for about a half hour before he disappeared from sight. I was curious as to what he might have been, so I went online, did some searching, and discovered I'd seen a turkey vulture. The more I read about vultures, the more fascinated I became. That eventually branched into an interest in other birds. Now I volunteer once a week at a wildlife rescue, where I help care for injured birds... including turkey vultures!
- —Guest Jen
Canada Warbler
- My parents were birders, and they showed me birds at a young age. One day when I was about 6 or 7, I was at home alone and I saw a new bird in a tree by our window feeder. I got the Peterson guide out and made the ID myself - a male Canada warbler. That was my spark bird.
- —Guest Allen
Tawny Frogmouth
- The incredible tawny frogmouth... It seemed as if Jim Henson had created a living, breathing bird (with the help of Dr. Suess). And then there were the parrots... so many Australian parrots - rosellas, corellas, lorikeets, cockatoos, galahs and parrots!
- —Guest R. Bruce Richardson
Indigo Bunting
- The first time I saw that brilliant blue bird at my feeders, I was thrilled and so excited! I wasn't sure what it was, but I took its picture as many times as I could. Then I was able to identify it. Still, my photos weren't very good. I got a better camera, and waited for him to come. He came, I got better shots, and have been hooked on every bird I see. I await the arrival of ruby-throated hummingbirds, May 6th the past two springs. They are now my bird of choice to photograph. But there are so many beautiful birds! I'll be busy for the next several years, searching for birds, wood ducks were my goal this winter, and I found them in the early fall. I was ecstatic again! "I'd rather be birding"!
- —birdnut1251
Gray Jay
- My spark bird was a Gray Jay - in fact a whole family of them!
- —lidrokz
Can't Remember One
- It's funny... I can't remember any one bird being my "spark" bird. I have always loved birds, and my parents maintained bird feeders when I was a child. Also, my mother (not knowing that you need a license to rehabilitate wildlife) was always rescuing injured and orphaned birds, so I got to observe them up close and personal. I just never remember a time when I didn't enjoy watching and listening to the birds.
- —margecutter
All Birds
- I have always been interested... I don't remember a time in my life that I didn't watch/like/love/feed birds.
- —Guest Anna
Barn Swallow
- I first saw the barn swallow at the age of 10, while attending summer camp on Lake Huron. The swallows were nesting in the overhead beams of our cabin. I watched them with fascination every day for two weeks as they flew back and forth just a few feet over my head. I was content to sit on the porch and watch the birds fly about calling out their summer song. I was forever changed by that experience and ever since, I have kept my eyes on the sky for birds. When I see a barn swallow, it takes me back to that summer on the lake and how that experience sparked my life long interest in birding.
- —jkissnhug
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