My first bird watching day was astounding.Angry seagulls directly overhead spelled trouble for me. While at the beach, my brother teased the gulls with his frisbee.

I was wearing my Dad’s binoculars on a strap around my neck. I never knew how precious and valuable those binoculars were, but my brother made me a nervous wreck. When we lived in New Jersey in the city, we went to the “shore” once a year for Dad’s vacation. 

Most of the birds at the beach were terns, seagulls and sandpipers. Dad let me use his binoculars even though they were his special prized possession, Leupold binoculars. Dad’s delight was watching boats in the bay and on the horizon. My brother’s delight was watching girls with those binoculars. Yes, he was also young!) I enjoyed the birds at the beach and the bay because they were so different from the ones in the city at home.

The birds in my backyard were ordinary, like sparrows and robins and pigeons. But they were all used to people so we did not use binoculars at home. Bluejays came to our backyard now and then. Grandma often scolded them for chasing the smaller birds away.

My father showed me hawks and buzzards in flight but I could not tell them apart. Dad made the distinction clear, buzzards eat you after you die like in the cowboy movies. Hawks eat rabbits or mice or voles and other small mammals or even snakes sometimes. Even so, I could not identify these birds. It was Grandma who told me I needed to save my allowance to buy a book to identify birds like bird guides.

The only time we took Dad’s Leupold binoculars with us was when we went to a lake or a beach. On one trip we saw swallows flitting over the water near the cliffs. I was on the other side of the car the day Mom saw a meadowlark. Funny. It was years later that I finally saw my first meadowlark. By then I understood the value and importance of both birding guides and those incredible Leupold binoculars.

 

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