Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993 TAG: 9305070008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Steve Kark
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Additionally, every Thanksgiving they take part in the "feeder watch," identifying and counting birds that visit their feeders during a day when my interest in birds usually extends no further than the large one baking in our oven.
Well, I'd like to propose my own kind of watch. I'll call it a springtime hammock watch, or more accurately, a hammock listen. It seems a lot more practical to me.
I'm lying in a hammock which hangs between the house and the railing of our front deck. And because the deck itself is 10 or so feet off the ground, my vantage point is level with the upper branches of the trees growing below our hillside house.
I can look out and see the birds as though I were hanging there in the trees with them. I am surrounded by their singing.
A warm breeze tickles through the branches, gently rocking my hammock. I wiggle my toes, stretch out and close my eyes.
I try to identify birds by their song. We have a tape that assists in this undertaking, but I've found that listening, looking and checking the field guide is the best way.
I'll do that later, though. Right now, I feel like a little nap. Bird listening requires a lot of concentration, something I can't seem to muster at the moment.
When I wake up - this is one of the hazards of this kind of activity - I recognize one right off.
It's a house wren. I know them well enough. Several times in the past, a pair has nested in an old flowerpot I nailed to one of the roof supports.
Although they were always fairly tolerant of my presence at night, the wrens reacted to my approach during the day by flying to a nearby branch and starting up a minor ruckus. That's how I know what they sound like.
Until they eventually got used to me, I sometimes took advantage of their initial fears and climbed up to peer in at their eggs. There were usually about five in the nest, white with brown speckles.
I'd kept track of the number of birds born in that old pot, but stopped counting after 19.
From inside the house, I've watched adult birds coax the young out of this nest to make their first flight across the yard into the trees and beyond.
The last time this happened, I could see the adult birds in the trees below the house, diligently instructing their young several hours after they'd left the nest.
I remember the young wrens, especially if I close my eyes again, as they lined up along a branch, softly swaying back and forth in the wind, like my hammock is doing at this very moment.
Oh, well. I identified one; that's a good afternoon's work. Maybe I'll try again later after another little nap.
That's what I like about bird listening.
It's a low-impact wilderness experience.
Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for the Roanoke Times & World-News. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.
by CNB