A flash of color. A movement out at the edge of my peripheral vision. A song so sweet it lingers in the mind after it’s done. These are the taunts of the birds as I try to spot them. Brown. Gray. Yellow. White. Black. Sometimes bright colors. Blue. Green. Red. Orange.

Birding, the act of watching birds, can be passive or active. In the passive form one simply observes birds that flit or swore on the path of one’s normal travels. In the active form the purpose is to see birds, discover their hiding places, and learn their names.

Growing up my mom liked birds and knew the names of most of the ones we saw in our rural home. My mom’s side of the family was a bird-loving side. As such, bird names – blue jay, cardinal, chickadee, hairy woodpecker, osprey, red-tailed hawk, wood duck, mallard, etc. – were part of my normal vocabulary. Just like, I imagine, brands or celebrities’ names were part of the vocabulary of other children. I didn’t know it was unique to know birds by name until I moved away for college. There I found myself on an urban campus where I wasn’t convinced that some of my colleagues could identify a live chicken.

Life unfolded. I stayed urban for a time. Then I moved abroad where there was too much to learn to also learn new birds. And then the doctorhood quest took off like an ultramarathon – slow and steady but always busy in its own way. Fast forward. I found myself in Virginia. Virginia and Vermont share many birds. And some of the birds Vermont sees only in the summer Virginia sees at other times of year. As I wandered the forest and wetland trails on my days off from residency, I started to notice the birds again. Somehow, having spent 10 years learning other things and more than that away from my childhood home, the birds I knew as a child resurfaced. Old knowledge was not lost despite filling my brain with an additional zillion factoids on medicine and the human body. Birds. I still know the song of the hermit thrush – Vermont’s state bird. I remembered the nuthatch and the tufted titmouse.

I have a good partnership. My spouse likes to take pictures of birds and I’m good at spotting them. My binoculars are my superpower. The only challenge is that when one starts actively spying on birds it’s hard to stop. My spouse and I now seek out birds on our vacations. I find myself toiling over bird books and using Merlin Bird ID.

Birding escalates. It starts with just trying to see birds. Then it’s about naming them. Then it’s about finding rare birds and memorizing new bird names. A harmless pastime. Another excuse to be outside. Another reason to love wild places. Another reason to also learn about the trees and plants that birds, themselves, adore. What fun it is to go on a walk and be able to name the birds, trees, and plants I see. Almost everyone used to be able to do that. Now it’s a dying art. Funny how the world changes. It’s never too late to circle back on the knowledge we once had. It’s never too late to learn something new. Just ask the birds migrating on ancestral routes and adapting to new cityscapes. They’re experts in learning.