Illustration By Matthieu Roussel
No, it’s a not a Peeping Tom convention, just part of Warblermania!, a popular program on the annual Delmarva Birding Weekend’s busy schedule of events. (For information on the 2006 program, see sidebar at the end of the article.)
For me and the twenty-five or so others, who, last April, arose pre-dawn on a Saturday to catch a chartered bus and wander down remote dirt roads and through Wicomico County fields, catching a glimpse of the yellow-rumped warbler in full breeding plumage is well worth it.
For several of us, it’s our first time seeing the posterior of such a bird. Its sighting is a nice addition to my fellow birders’ “life lists.” Prior to this trip, I thought a life list read something like: climb Mt. Everest; learn to play the banjo; run with the bulls; lose twenty pounds, etc. But to bird watchers, a life list is the running tally of all the bird species spotted over the course of their lives. I’m told by several birders that an average life list includes 1,500 to 2,000 species.
From my novice perspective, compiling a life list is a fairly laid-back process, but there are various ways to do it. Some count a bird only if they’ve seen it; others add a bird to their list if they’ve only heard its call. Thankfully, there’s no checking or challenging. During the morning, I lean heavily on my auditory senses to start my own tally. Just like kisses, cars, and spouses, you never forget your first bird, and I’ll forever count the yellow-rumped warbler as No. 1 on my list.
Like the hundreds of feathered species who visit the Delmarva Peninsula in late April, novice and veteran birders have been flocking to the Delmarva Birding Weekend for almost a dozen years. Each year, interest and participation in the event grows. Last year, 445 birders from as far as Colorado and as close as Ocean City attended, and more than five hundred are expected this April.
The weekend, sponsored by the Delmarva Low Impact Tourism Experiences (DELITE), and supported by several Shore tourism offices and nonprofits, offers twenty-one guided trips, which range from canoe and kayak excursions through cypress swamps to daytime walking trips to owl prowls at night and boat trips around the coastal waterways. All take place within a 1.5-hour driving distance of each other (participants drive themselves to the starting point of each trip), and all are geared toward the novice birder. “We’re not looking to attract academic ornithologists,” says Jim Rapp, director of the Salisbury Zoo and one of the weekend’s coordinators. “It’s not a college lecture. It’s a low-key, low-impact, great way to spend the weekend outdoors.”
On Friday night’s opening birding social at Seacrets in Ocean City, one of the weekend’s fifty volunteer guides, Robin Dalton, director of New York’s Queens Zoo, adds to my ornithological education over my supper of turkey wrap and chips. (Given the crowd, perhaps I shouldn’t have ordered poultry.) He explains that the Delmarva area is such a significant birding area in the spring because it’s on the Mid-Atlantic Flyway, an internationally recognized migratory hot spot for birds flying north from the Southern United States, Central America, and the Caribbean. “It’s the first time they are getting food after a long flight,” says Dalton, who’s been birding since the 1960s and, really, who doubts the word of a veteran birder named Robin?
Many birds stay for the summer but others move on after breeding. Jim Rapp calls it “a Disney World for birders” and notes that in a good weekend, the list of species spotted can top 170. “In this area over the course of a year, you could see 300, and that’s phenomenal,” heelaborates. “There are no colors in the Crayola box of the colors of birds.”(During the spring breeding season, the feathers on male species brighten in order to attract females, what’s called a prenuptial molt. Females’ feathers brighten, too, but not as brightly as those of the male.)
And it’s not just songbirds in trees and meadows. The region’s marshes and shorelines are part of this feathered reproductive frenzy, too. Wading birds such as herons, egrets, ducks, and other waterfowl get into the action as well.
On Saturday, what had started as a gray, raining early morning is turning into a sunny day, so several of us begin shedding our own plumage. Warblermania’s mostly older crowd (I think I’m the only one under sixty) is dressed in lots of layers— a good choice for the region’s ever-changing mid-spring weather. A few couples even wear matching windbreakers and hats, and nearly everyone totes expensive binoculars, camera equipment, and a field guide to the birds of North America. One or two men have strapped on camera harnesses that look like trapeze riggings. Throughout the weekend,
I see people sporting bird-themed earrings, scarves, hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts, and camera straps. Like most enthusiasts, birders love themed accessories.
During Warblermania, a chartered bus ferries our group from spot to spot, starting with a meadow near the Salisbury-Ocean City Wicomico Regional Airport where sparrows hiding in the brush serenade us. Our guide is Ellen Lawler, a Salisbury University biology professor and ornithologist who has been guiding Warblermania for five years.
With Lawler’s expert eyes and ears, the others see (and I hear) several species of songbirds, including the coveted yellow-rumped warbler, the yellow-throated warbler, the prothonotary warbler, the grasshopper sparrow, the Blackburnian warbler, and the chickadee. I have a hard time seeing birds with my borrowed, vintage “bins”—birdwatcher speak for “binoculars”—something my newfound companions assure me gets easier with each outing.
There’s really very little one needs to enjoy birdwatching beyond a good pair of binoculars and an appreciation for nature. It does help to have a patient eye, a good ear, a strong sense of direction, comfy shoes, and a large bladder. On Saturday morning, we have only one rest stop during the four-hour trip, but a potty break
doesn’t mean a break in the action. While waiting in the restroom line at an Exxon station on Route 50, several people spot kingbirds, mockingbirds, and a flock of Canada geese with goslings in a nearby grass lot. I spy a Krispy Kreme with sprinkles inside the gas station.
On and off the bus, the group helps each other—and me—to see birds. There’s no sense of competition or one-upmanship. No one spots a bird and keeps the sighting to him or herself. Birding may be a quiet, watchful hobby, but it’s amazingly collegial and surprisingly exciting.
Later in the morning, along a creek, a woman from Colorado whispers that a prairie warbler is resting in the cavity of a cypress tree. Those of us within earshot move silently to where she stands. Like a precision drill team, cameras and binoculars swing upward. “There it is,” she says to me. “See the yellow and black markings?”
Warblers, I learn, don’t stand still for long—and constantly chatter. Neither do birders. Though quiet on the walk to listen for birds, the talk on the bus is spirited and friendly. Folks share stories of turkey breeding, owl trips, and other birding outings taken around the region and country, while our guide answers questions about some of the birds we saw earlier in the morning. For Lawler, guiding trips is an opportunity to give back.
“I like to share my enjoyment of birds,” she says. “It’s payback to the birds from the enjoyment I’ve gotten from them. Hopefully people will become more involved with birds, and they’ll become more interested in their habitat.”
That’s exactly the kind of reaction that Rapp and all associated with planning the weekend are going for. “We started it to showcase the area,” says Rapp. “Our hope is that people will come down throughout the year. Bottom line, it’s another tool in our box to go to the elected officials and general citizenry to say, ‘Let’s keep this land as is.’ If we’re smart, we can still have development and still preserve the heritage and nature of the area.”
Early Saturday afternoon finds about eighty of us—and a much younger crowd with even a few pre-teens—gathered on the Talbot Street Pier in Ocean City waiting for our Shore Birds Explorer Trip. People eat Thrasher’s fries and talk about a morning jaunt to Snow Hill where they spotted seventy different species. Someone points out a peregrine falcon, and all movement on the dock shifts as binoculars go up. I make a prophylactic bathroom trip to the nearby Angler Restaurant (the spot for the weekend’s final social immediately following the boat trip) and hurry back to get a good seat on the pontoon boat that will take us around Skimmer Island (also known as the 4th Street Flats) north of the Route 50 bridge and the north shore of Assateague Island.
The minute I settle into a plastic deck seat, I start seeing birds, bow to stern, port to starboard. Cameras click, and people shout when they see American oyster catchers, herring gulls, or anything else with wings. It’s like watching a tennis match with the “oohs” and “aahs” of the crowd flying as fast as birds across the bow of the boat. “Birder’s neck,” chuckles the lady to my right when she sees me stretching.
Via microphone, guide Mark Hoffman, of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, encourages us to “work the flock, and see if you can pull anything out.” My bins at the ready, I do just that with a flock of double-crested cormorants and am able to pick out the brighter colored males from the more drab females with the help of guide Robin Dalton sitting nearby. As the boat churns past the sandy flats of Skimmer Island, the moment veers toward the voyeuristic, as the entire boatload strains to get a glimpse of two gulls mating. Hoffman’s voice crackles over the mike with an academic approach to what is causing a chuckle on board: “There’s an oyster catcher, and nearby you’ll see two great black-backed gulls copulating.” A voice pipes up, asking if that means we can count the gulls as three birds spotted.
The boat heads toward Assateague Island, and people point out brants, a boat-tailed grackle, and even a bald eagle picking through trash on the shoreline, while wild ponies graze in the distance. The shores and flats are filled with birds nesting—apparently the gulls have moved beyond the courting phase. With the boardwalk rides still and silent in the distance, loons bob on the water, and gulls dip and soar above. It’s as if the birds are performing on cue for a Saturday matinee.
Back at the Talbot Street Pier, we file off, excited to add our sightings to the weekend’s list of species. The Angler Restaurant serves cocktails (cash bar) and a heavy spread of free hors d’oeuvres. I snag a waitress for yet another cup of coffee—the early bird may catch the worm, but I’m not used to getting up before dawn to go birdwatching—while Rapp and others tally the list of species spotted for the weekend: 160 all told. Later, Rapp tells me what he thinks makes the weekend special. “It’s the camaraderie,” he says. “Everyone seems to have the same interest in helping people see the bird. They’re so happy if you’ve seen a bird, even if they don’t see it [themselves].”
As I drive home to Baltimore from Ocean City, my borrowed field guide and bins packed in my suitcase, I notice the birds along Route 50. I don’t know their names, but now, somehow, they seem more than just, well, birds. I don’t see myself seriously getting into birding anytime soon. I have a very active nine-year-old boy, so a hobby that centers on quietly walking through woods is not exactly tailor-made to my life right now. And I’m certain that no amount of cajoling could convince my husband to don matching rain gear.
But I do plan on buying my own field guide to keep near the big window in my kitchen. If a great-looking rump wanders into my yard, I want to be prepared.
Baltimore-based freelancer Sarah Achenbach’s only previous experience with birding was as a child, fighting with her sister over whose turn it was to clean the cage of their incorrectly named female parakeet, Pretty Boy.
