Blogs by Patricia Hilliard
Big Day Bird Walks
10/6/2018 11:04:51 AM
Participating in the Big Day Bird Walk gave us a feeling of accomplishment at one time but later...?
In the spring, our neighborhood bird watchers gathered into a flock at our favorite roosting spot and did the Big Day Bird Count. The weather was beautiful and at the end, we posed for a group photo. In the photo, you can see us holding our binoculars, cameras with large and small lenses and one of us has a scope to share a closer look at distant birds. We smile, full of pride.
In autumn, the weather is not so good. Fog covers New York bay so thick we cannot see the Verrazano Bridge. We make our way down the trail, looking over the edge at the water in the Bayonne Inlet. There are Great Egrets, Double-crested Cormorants, Mallards and Black Ducks. The air is so damp we wonder if we should continue our walk.
Soon we are rewarded with an Osprey flying overhead. One woman points to a Northern Harrier. We gaze up at the brown body of the female harrier sailing overhead. Cameras click and buzz as pictures of it are captured. In the end we count 25 species of migrating and local birds. We march back in droplets of rain that soak our hair, hats and coats. We don't even take a group photo. Our job of counting birds is done. We hurry off to go shopping or get some lunch. The weather has a lot to do with how you feel about what you do.
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