What's a Real Birdwatcher?

A great moment, hand feeding a friendly Tufted Titmouse!

A lot of people, when they think of a birdwatcher, usually picture an eccentric old thin man with a pair of gigantic binoculars, straining to catch a glimpse of an elusive warbler. You probably don't imagine a guy like myself popping Starlings, leaping up trees to nail up a birdhouse, or trailing a rag on the ground to catch a Hawk's eye, but this is what I would call a birdwatcher.



Golden-crowned Kinglet, preening


The first type of birdwatcher is the kind that will spend a fortune to travel to the border of Mexico just to add a Trojan to their life list, but the real ones are content with the local gathering of species, and whatever extras an occasional vacation brings. Their favorite part about birdwatching is not only adding new species, but being able to see and track those species already on their list.

Yellow-rumped Warbler, spring male

There is yet another partition that further narrows down the real birdwatcher. This is the difference between the passive and aggressive birders. The passive kind spends a fortune on different harmless repellents for Starlings, House sparrows, or squirrels, to help their own yard's population, but really what they're doing is simply sending those same bothersome creatures to other people, resulting in a somewhat vicious circle....... until the bird lights on the aggressive birder's feeder, then...BANG! That Starling will never bother another bird - or person - again!

By the way, the bird I asked all of you to identify was a Brown Thrasher, and I have seen a few lately.
I killed one more Starling; it's added to the kills list.


Now what is this bird? (please comment).