No other day has been as fantastic as my first day of birdwatching.Oh no. Seagulls directly overhead. That means trouble . When my brother tossed a frisbee at the gulls, I dodged.
Dad let me borrow his binoculars so I kept the strap secure 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.
As far as I knew, the birds at the beach were either seagulls, sandpipers or terns. Dad let me use his binoculars even though they were his special prized possession, Leupold binoculars. He liked to watch the boats at sea. My brother took in the female scenery from a distance. Yes, he was also young!The birds at the beach were so cool because they were different from the ones I saw in the city.
At home we had house sparrows, robins, starlings, pigeons, crows and once in a while a cardinal in our yard. But they were all used to people so we did not use binoculars at home. Oh yes, we had bluejays too. 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 pointed out the difference. Buzzards eat dead animals, even humans if they die in the desert. Hawks eat rabbits and catch them to kill them for a meal. Ah, but i still did not know how to identify them. It was Grandma who told me I needed to save my allowance to buy a book to identify birds like bird guides.
Dad did not often take the Leupold binoculars out for a regular drive. Only when we went to a lake or beach. We saw swallows over the water near the cliffs on one trip. Mom saw a meadowlark but I was on the wrong side of the car and missed it. Funny. Many years later I 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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