The mountain chickadee inhabits the dry alpine climate of the Rocky Mountain region of North America. There, it makes its home among the stately ponderosas. Like other chickadees, this slightly-bigger-than-a-thumb-sized avian can be distinguished by its iconic cheerful call: chicka-dee-dee-dee.
Which is a good thing, because one fascinating characteristic sets the mountain chickadee apart from its kin (boreal chickadee, Carolina chickadee, Mexican chickadee, chestnut-backed chickadee, etc.). Scientists have recently discovered that the mountain chickadee possesses a unique adaptation.
It can go invisible.
Several taunt us from the shadow branches of the pine grove: chicka-dee-dee-dee. My friend peers steadily into the darkness like a captain at the prow of a ship, the subtle motion of her binocular adjustments are almost imperceptible.
And I’m sinking.
I followed her off the trail and into a snowbank in pursuit of the spiteful little puffballs. And when she hissed for silence, I stopped dead in a drift and waited, trying to follow her line of sight into the trees.
I’m telling you, the buggers are invisible.
We looked. Steady and quiet. And they mocked us from all directions, flitting around in the branches, while my pant legs soaked up to my mid-calf.
Finally, my friend capped her binoculars, I trudged out of the snowdrift, and we continued down the trail into the sunshine.
“Another one for the life list?” I ask. (A life list is a personal catalog of bird sightings and identifications that bird-watchers keep. They travel the world adding new species. Some life lists may accumulate hundreds of entries over decades of searching.)
“Oh, I’d seen them before,” my friend says casually.
I look down at my cold, wet pant legs.
I think I’m a remarkably good sport about the whole birdwatching thing. I’ve waited, frozen, in deserts, fields, snow drifts, and parking lots while my friends have pointed excitedly to black specs, blobs, and flickers in distant brush, exclaiming over birds that seem either ridiculously common—magpies, robins, swallows—or laughably improbable—boobies, goatsuckers, pufflegs.
You attempt to take your friend seriously when they rapturously whisper that you are hot on the trail of a rare octagonal wiffle-snot or a North American yellow-throated tussy.
I’m very supportive. I nod encouragingly. Even though a part of me expects that I am being had. It’s all a joke at my expense, payback for all the long odysseys I have led through musty bookstores and warren-like museums.
The names of these birds cannot possibly be real. (Well, I did make up “octagonal wiffle-snot” for the purposes of illustration, but “goatsucker” and “hoary puffleg” are very real bird names.) In many cases, it sounds like the official methodology for naming birds is to find a spectacularly fussy member of the British aristocracy and an old-timey cowboy and have them collaboratively come up with insults. ”Lilly-livered tosser” seems like a completely possible name for a bird.
Prior to all my friends downloading the Merlin app and buying fancy binoculars (which, despite weighing as much as an infant and requiring almost as much care, do not show you much beyond distant blurs), my impression of birdwatching was that it was an eccentric hobby for fussy British aristocrats, or at least retirees. And to be honest, much of that impression was shaped by the movie The Big Year with Steve Martin and Jack Black. (Good movie. Accurate portrayal.)
Why are all my twenty-something friends into this?
I pride myself on my friends. Through careful searching, respectful observation, and quiet listening, I have managed to gather a collection of the most lively, interesting, creative, and intelligent people. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me if they end up pursuing eccentric hobbies.
And I must admit that, in our present circumstances, with much that is dark, uncertain, and anxious, it’s nice to partake of an activity that costs nothing and involves mostly standing very still in the woods. The world is so loud. We lament so much, desire so much, need so much. Much is asked of us.
I suppose it is a little like the pandemic-era sourdough craze, the answer to a craving for something simple yet sensory. Something real. Something which requires effort but which is not complex or weighted with great implications, repercussions, and meaning.
But at least with sourdough, you typically have something to show for it!
I am a great proponent of hobbies typically associated with grandparents. I knit and crochet. I enjoy a bit of antiquing. I take photos on a film camera. I listen to music on a record player.
But when one knits or takes photos, you create something physical. It’s quite satisfying. The whole activity of birdwatching is in the name. You watch. That’s it. It doesn’t produce anything. Sometimes you drive for hours and walk for miles and don’t even see anything!
But the community of birdwatchers are generally a warm, welcoming lot. Several of my friends have joined local birdwatching clubs as a means of making friends and forming connections in their community. And that I do understand.
After all that’s why I end up tramping through snow in wet pants following a rare Passionate Bird-watching Mathematician.
She’s another one for the life list.
Emily Stroble is a writer of bits and pieces and is distractedly pursuing lots of novel ideas and nonfiction projects as inspiration strikes. As an editorial assistant at Zondervan, she helps put the pieces of children’s books and Bibles together. A lover of the ridiculous, inexplicable, and wondrous as well as stories of all kinds, Emily enjoys getting lost in museums, movies old and new, making art, the mountains of Colorado, and the unsalted oceans near Grand Rapids. Her movie reviews also appear in the Mixed Media section of The Banner and her strange little stories of the fantastic are on the Calvin alumni fiction blog Presticogitation. Her big dream is to dig her hands deep into the soil of making children’s books as an editor…and to finally finish her children’s novel.
