A passion for birding provides staying power and great benefits for our avian companions, for ourselves, and for the Earth

Father And Son Birding. “Even as the birds sing tumultuously and glance by with fresh and brilliant plumage, so now is Nature’s grandest voice heard, and her sharpest flashes seen.” — Henry David Thoreau, May 19, 1856. Steve Chorvas’ wonder at birds hasn’t ceased since he began looking at them in Saugerties around the age of eight. Chrissy Guarino creates a moment of joy as she shares a sighting of a sandhill crane with a group at the Shawangunk National Grasslands Wildlife Refuge on a rainy vernal equinox walk she leads. As if it were yesterday, Zade Pacetti recalls a startlingly beautiful sight of two scarlet tanagers outside his window, a moment of falling in love with birds. Just as there are thousands of species of birds, their human observers come in countless varieties. It’s no wonder that people become smitten by watching birds’ movements and activities – from their backyards to natural areas near and far – pausing for a time to take in the moment, recording observations on bird apps, capturing birds in vivid close-up images, and championing bird conservation. Great Blue Heron (Photo by Susan DeMark) Birds are living miracles in Earth’s ecosystem, capable of incredibly colorful, agile maneuvers and displays; complex variations of sound and song; and amazing migratory flights from continent to continent. Consider the male American woodcock’s mating ritual known as a “sky dance.” Each spring, it begins the ritual with a series of nasal peent calls, and then suddenly flies a wide spiraling pattern upward to heights of 200 to 300 feet, beating specialized wing feathers to produce a steady twittering sound. Then the woodcock tumbles downward. It was in pursuit of witnessing the woodcock courtship ritual that Guarino recently led a group on a John Burroughs Natural History Society walk at the Shawangunk Grasslands NWR. In times past, many people considered birding an intellectual pursuit for a select group of people. It’s become more of a hobby and passion that re