Your spark bird story is the story of the bird/moment/experience that got you hooked on birding. Your spark bird memory likely stands out to you as a specific event or incident that occurred at a particular time and place that you have thought about often. It may stand out to you for a particular reason - perhaps it was especially good, particularly vivid, important, or memorable, or occurred during a challenging time in your life. It is likely a memory that you remember clearly and that still feels important to you even as you think about it.

Please be elaborate in your telling of this experience. But also don't feel like you have to answer each of these questions or in this order - they are just ideas to get you started! What was your spark bird? Did you see it in person or learn about it in a field guide, video, podcast, work of art, lecture, etc.? What happened? Where were you? What was the setting like? How did you come to be there? Were you alone or with others? If you were with others, who was with you and what, if any, was their role in your experience? What were you thinking and feeling in the moment? Why do you think this particular experience was a spark bird moment for you? What does it say about you, your connection to others, and/or your understanding of the world? 

Tell your story in your voice as you might to a friend while you are driving back from a morning of birding or waiting for spring. 

• Adapted from the self-defining memory (Singer & Blagov, 2002) and life story interview key memory (McAdams, 2007) prompts. 

I was born loving birds, I can't remember a time I did not love birds. [age 0]

Anonymous

It was just a few years ago that I didn't truly appreciate these special feathered friends. I can't say that I had one specific moment that made me consider myself a birder, it was more of a collection of moments. After starting to take walks at a local park and bird hotspot, I started to find myself listening to their calls instead of just hearing them. Then began the fun of learning to identify them. Some of my favorite moments were seeing a loon, great blue herons, and an eastern screech owl. It was also nice to discover birding with a friend, even becoming a little competitive about adding to our life list. Discovering birding has definitely changed my perspective and I no longer take them for granted. [age 30]

Anonymous

My spark bird came about from a birthday present about 20 years ago. A dear friend gave me a bird feeder along with birdseed. I asked, "what am I suppose to with this". 

My birthday is during the winter. So I filled the bird feeder and hung it up. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was winter. 

Well, I saw such a beautiful sight. A bright red Northern Cardinal on my bird feeder against the background of snow covered trees and ground. [age 30]

Peter Corrigan

In the early 1990's, preoccupied with a young family and career, I usually paid scant attention to the natural world around me. Though I did my fair share of walking (mostly to and from Metro Rail for my daily commute), my mind was not on my surroundings. Sure, I'd notice the weather, and dress for it. Otherwise, thoughts of work, deadlines, etc. dominated my frontal lobe. If a bird sang or flew across my path, I barely noticed.

One late-spring day, walking home from the train, I happened to look a few blocks ahead and see a bird. This bird was odd in a couple of ways. First, it was down on the sidewalk (don't birds hang out in trees?). It was good-sized, bigger than a robin. And its coloration was much different from that of our drab city sparrows. This bird's brownish back was streaked with black and, from my vantage point, it seemed to have some sort of polka-dot thing going on with its chest. I could also discern a fat streak of jet black near its breast. What really caught my eye was the brilliant bit of red toward the back of the bird's head. This was one sharp-looking...mourning dove?

As I drew near, the bird gave no indication it had noticed me, so intent was it on whatever it had found on the sidewalk. When I'd gotten about ten feet away the bird finally gave a quick look over its shoulder, saw me, and flew up and away. Something bright white flashed on its back as its wings beat rapidly back and forth, lifting it away from me. I stood there, mystified, charmed...and determined to identify this beautiful thing I'd seen.

Today, I'd have Googled a description of the bird and had the answer in seconds. Alas, there was no internet in 1988. Serendipitously, my late father had bequeathed to us his copy of "Readers' Digest North American Wildlife". This was our go-to reference when we needed information on a plant or animal. I leafed through the book and, sure enough, there it was on page 119: the "Common Flicker" (known now as the Northern Flicker). A member of the woodpecker family, it is often observed feeding on ants they find on the ground. I was fascinated that such a creature could randomly appear in front of me on a busy city street.

And that's how it all began. I started to notice the other birds around our neighborhood. I bought a bird guide (Roger Tory Peterson's "Eastern Birds", a classic). We began to watch and feed birds in our tiny city yard. We took to field and forest to enjoy the birds, becoming hikers along the way. We dragged our kids along for the ride and, happily, today they seem to harbor no ill will as a result. On these outings we began to appreciate not only birds, but the other animals and plants enhancing our world.

Birders speak of a phenomenon called the "spark bird". This is the bird that first sets a person on the path to appreciating and enjoying birds. I guess mine was that Northern Flicker. Whenever I see or hear a flicker these days, I think of that first one on the sidewalk years ago and the birding experiences that followed. [age 35]

Jennifer Grande

When I was a pre-teen or teenager, I would stay up late, and sleep in late in the summer. One summer, there was a bird that would sing outside my window, and wake me up every morning at 4am. At first, I was annoyed. But, as it happened every day, I started to listen to the bird's song, and find beauty in it. I wanted to know what kind of bird it was. I eventually learned it was a house finch. That event sparked my interest in bird song, and I even tried making my own recordings with the tape recorder on my boombox. [age 12]

Dave Bennett

I was driving out on a country road a few years ago. Right next to the road was a deer carcass and standing on it was a huge bird with a golden head. I couldn't believe what i was seeing. I've heard rumors of golden eagles and now I'm that I'm staring at one. I try to get a picture with my phone but it flys away. The next day i take my daughters camera and drive out there and sure enough there it is. I was literally crying. How amazing. So i get some decent pictures. Im calling everyone i know and none of them were nearly as excited as i was. I start looking at some of the apps and doing research to see how rare golden eagles are in my area. It turns out they are very rare. And then i make a huge discovery....juvenile bald eagles DON'T HAVE WHITE HEADS!!! They are almost GOLD colored. Yup. My golden eagle was a juvenile bald eagle. Still awesome. But i had to then call everyone back and tell them my error. I had to "eat some crow". But through that experience i learned how exciting and fascinating it is to do the research and to look for these amazing creatures. And I've been hooked since. And now i am sure of my bird before i call anyone. [age 45]

Shelby

In high school, my AP Biology teacher was a huge birder. After we took the AP test, our final project for the year was an in-depth study on a bird of our choice. We had to make a Power Point presentation on our bird that we presented to our class, but then we also made a display that included 5 informative posters about our bird, a 3D model of our bird and its nest that was as close to life-sized as possible, and a game that would help us learn about the bird. My school hosted a "Bird Day," where we would set up our displays in the hallways of the school and elementary schoolers walked through and played the games we created and learned about our birds. I loved this project and I had an absolute blast every step of the way with it. I still have pictures of the bird and the display I made. I chose the kiwi, which is one of the coolest birds on earth. A few years later, I was able to travel to New Zealand. I didn't see any kiwis in the wild, but I visited a kiwi sanctuary, and I was also able to see other awesome birds on that trip. I loved learning about the kiwi and doing that project in school, but it wasn't until I saw these incredible birds in real life that I became hooked on birds. When I came home from New Zealand I joined my college's Audubon and started going birding. [age 16]

Anonymous

My earliest recollection was back in the early 1960s at my dad's bird feeder which was a few feet from the open window in the dining room. Although house sparrows were abundant, the male northern cardinal did visit the platform and take our breath away with its brilliant red, contrasted by its black mask. Its wonderful and continuous songs were what connected us beyond the up close view. We recognized the visitor nearby by its call not always by sight. Since then we try to expand our birding delights by recognizing by sound out of sight. [age 7]

TS

I generally don't share the full story of my spark bird because I tend to get scolded for it, and not without reason.

When I was a kid, we had a pet cat and robins that nested in our yard, so it was no surprise when our cat started hunting the fledgling robins. I couldn't bear to sit by while the young birds got slowly killed and there were a handful of youngsters that I was able to pull from the jaws of the cat. Long story short, I know that it's not legal for a suburban kid to just 'raise' fledglings from a protected bird species, but that's what I did throughout that summer. We were doing our best and it's not like we were kidnapping the fledglings from their parents anyway. The birds were never not wild. We had a couple of robin fledglings make a full recovery and successfully fly away from our back deck into the wild where I hope they led long and productive robin lives.

I learned to identify and find American Robin fledglings based on their constant begging calls and as a kid could spot them in trees or in shrubs. I love their twilight choruses before dawn and after dusk. I love the way robins congregate on damp lawns to hunt for worms. I love their cackles and whinnies and their urgent WEEP-WEEP calls, like they're rushing off to some other important place that they need to be. Robins feel like friends to me and they remind me of home.

When I was 20, I was on a road trip to Glacier National Park with my family and we drove up the Going-to-the-Sun road to the top of a Rocky Mountain pass that was blanketed in snow in late June. And who should we see hopping around the snow like it was nothing at all? Flocks of American Robins. They seemed to be at home wherever life planted them.

And one last robin story: I lived in Costa Rica for a time and though I loved it for the most part, I did get homesick sometimes too. After a few months there, I started hearing... American Robins? It took me a while to figure out what I was actually hearing--not American Robins but their Central American cousin, the Clay-Colored Thrush. From then on, whenever I heard a Clay-Colored Thrush singing, I would pause to listen because their song reminded me of the American Robins I missed at home. They reminded me of home while also bridging the gap for me between North America and Central America. [age 10]

Hayley G.

I've always been interested in birds and could identify certain birds but never really had taken the step into birding until 2021. I was working at a winery that had a large pond in front of it. One morning while setting up the patio, I saw a stalky bird in the reeds. I'd never seen any type of bird like it. I knew it was a heron of sorts but never seen anything like it. I went home after work and pulled out my mom's bird books and found out it was a black-crowned night heron! The next day, I brought a pair of binoculars to work and after that, I was hooked on watching and identifying every bird that was in the pond. I started to call the night heron Wally and would look for him every day. He stayed around for about 3 months. I watched him catch fish multiple times, even caught it happening with a few pictures! I learned what hooded mergansers, common mergansers, Lawrence's Goldfinches, spotted sandpipers, soras, and green herons were all while birding in this spot. I learned how to identify the calls of a red tailed hawk as opposed to a red shouldered hawk. I've gone on so many birding field trips with my local Audubon group, gone to Hawk Hill in San Francisco to help catalogue migrating raptors, banded birds at a local banding station, held an Aplomado falcon during a bird festival presentation, volunteer with California State Parks as a snowy plover guardian, and look forward to seeing so many more species and doing more bird related things! I've learned so much about birds and birding in the last three years and gotten so much enjoyment from it, all thanks to that amazing, red-eyed, yellow-legged black-crowned night heron. [age 26]

Angela

As a child in southern Ontario, I loved watching the birds from the school bus. My favourites were the red wing blackbird and blue jay. We moved to the States when I was 8 and I stopped watching. 30 years later and living in the northeast, I am now chasing sitings of all birds, but especially red wing blackbirds and blue jays. [age 4]

Anonymous

My husband loves to sail. Me, not so much. I was always fearful of ending up in the lake, which we did on occasion. But, I persevered. Every weekend in the summer, we would head to Cowan Lake in Wilmington, Ohio where we would put in our little Sunfish sailboat. It seemed that each time we went, a blue heron would fly overhead. It would land in the trees near us, then trace back over the lake to the other side, never going too far our of our sight. What a majestic bird. I instantly calmed down and felt connected to the natural world. I was able to enjoy the time on the water and looked forward to seeing our new "friends" at the lake. From then on, we called all blue herons "Bluies". They were "Our Birds".

We saw blue herons at the lake, but also every now and then near our home, then, we left the area and moved to Cleveland. Our time for sailing was finished. I figured there probably weren't any blue herons in Cleveland, but I was wrong. We bought a property next to a creek and imagine my delight when I looked out and saw "Bluie" in our side yard, standing stock-still, then wandering into the creek for food. I was nervous about our new house, our new life, . . . everything, but "Bluie" was here, and I was reassured. 

Then, the pandemic hit. As an artist, I was holed up in my new studio for days, weeks, months. I needed something to do and found an interest in scratchboard. It is a technique where you scratch off the surface of a black board to reveal white lines. I thought about images that would look good in this medium. Birds, . . . I started to scratch birds. 

At this point, I have done over 60 scratchboard birds, including several of "Bluie". I'm not really a birder, but my love and respect for birds has given me hours of creative joy and satisfaction. [age 64]

Lindsey in Tucson

I was living in Tucson, in a terrible apartment with no air conditioning. My partner was in grad school, my dad was dying from cancer, and I was away from my friends and family. A Vermilion flycatcher decided to use my mailbox as a perch for hunting under a reaching mesquite tree that provided a ton of reaching shade to my dusty yard. It was so close I didn't need binoculars which was good because I didn't have any. This brilliant energetic vivacious Bird hunted there for what seemed like hours and I was completely entranced. [age 31]

Michael Hurben

I was working on my physics doctorate at Colorado State University. One spring afternoon I took my homework to a small city park to enjoy the sunshine. Sitting at a picnic table, I was soon distracted by a bird that appeared to be feeding on the ground. It looked, to my untrained eye, like a woodpecker, but its behavior seemed so incongruous that I became totally absorbed with it. I realized that I needed to know what it was called. I packed up my papers, headed directly to a bookstore, and bought a Peterson Field Guide. I quickly identified my instigator bird as a Northern Flicker. Then I looked at all the other illustrations and realized I would have to see as many species as possible. Shortly after I would lose most of my eyesight due to a retinal disease, but I'm getting close to having ticked half the world's species. I'm determined to demonstrate that a legally blind person can yet identify an extreme number of species in a lifetime. That Flicker dramatically altered the course of my life. [age 26]

Jim

My spark bird was Evening Grosbeak. I was casually interested in birds when they came to our bird feeder. I would sit at an old table and sketch them as they flew in and out. I started to learn their names and quickly recognized the common Iowa winter birds. Then, one day in the early 1970s, I noticed a bird that looked like a giant Goldfinch. I quickly sketched it and observed it over the next couple days. My mother took me to the library where I checked out several bird books. I took them home and learned my bird was an Evening Grosbeak. 

I read on and on and was just fascinated by them. I ended up buying a Golden Guide to the Birds of North America that I still have. It was copyrighted in 1966 and still had Bachman's Warbler and Ivory-billed Woodpecker in it. 

I have not seen an Evening Grosbeak in Iowa since and when I did see it again in Minnesota 40+ years later, I felt like I'd seen a long lost friend. I've encountered them several times since and they're always special to see.  [age 10]

Kyra

When I was about three years old, I lived in a camp where they had a bird feeding station. At this station, there was a stuffed fake person with a jug for a head that we affectionately called "jug-head man." The purpose of jug-head man was to acclimatize the birds to the presence of a human-like figure. After a couple weeks of birds eating around jug-head man, I was able to sit in the same location and have chickadees and tufted titmice sit on me while they chowed down on the seeds. I have loved birds ever since, and I am currently studying to be an ornithologist.  [age 3]

Cat Fribley

When my college roommate pointed out a bird on a tree as we walked to class on an autumn day in 1990, I didn't anticipate that this moment would mark the beginning of something wonderful. While I can't pinpoint whether my spark bird was a red-bellied woodpecker or a yellow-shafted flicker, I can unequivocally say that it was a woodpecker, and it ignited a lifelong love of birds. That year also marked my initial diagnosis with PTSD, later evolving into Complex PTSD (CPTSD) due to the trauma of sexual abuse. Little did I know that birding would organically become a major healing tool, providing solace and a meditative escape from some of the long-lasting effects of sexual violence.  [age 19]

Tom Moxley

I was working on my computer from our winter residence on Hilton Head Island. I could look up from the table and view a panoramic low country setting as most of the back of the house consisted of sliding glass doors which looked out on an enormous live oak tree and the pond beyond. This time I saw a large bird in the tree not 30 feet away and it was in the process of tearing the head off a large fish. I watched this show for several minutes and wondered what species of bird this was. More importantly I wondered why with my undergraduate degree in biology I didn't know what bird it was. So I googled "fish hawk" and introduced myself to my first Osprey. I took a few photos with my inexpensive camera and was on my way to becoming a birder with a life list of photographed birds.  [age 60]

Karen T

I lived on a farm as a young girl. One spring when I was about ten years old, a Baltimore oriole built a nest in a small maple tree near out house. I was fascinated by the nest! The pair returned to the tree for a number of years. Since I have been married, my husband and I have had a bird feeder whenever possible. It wasn't until I retired that I joined the local Audubon group and found the whole world was full of marvelous birds - and birder friends. It is a hobby that you can enjoy in your back yard, a local park, or venture a great distance. [age 10]

Nate Scrivani 

I have had a connection to birds since I was about 13, just seeing their beautiful colors always caught my attention. Once I started to memorize them, I started to make the effort in studying them. I would only see photos/drawings in books, and once I got to see them in person, it was like meeting a celebrity. I vividly remember seeing the Indigo Bunting for the first time. [age 17]

Sydney Fitzpatrick

I was always an animal person, and grew up with dogs, cats, and horses and was always bringing critters home. I knew I wanted to work in wildlife rescue. I told everyone I was a mammal girl and didn't really like birds and had no interest in learning to identify them. In college, I was a Zoology major and the only reason I took Ornithology was because it was required before taking Island Biology (where students went to the Galapagos Islands). It had a reputation as a hard class with Dr. Edward Burtt, who was really well known in the birding community. It also had 2 birding labs a week at 7am, not ideal for a college student! It was Ohio, in January, and Dr. Burtt took us every week to various locations around town to bird while he intensely quizzed us. I remember him asking me what family ducks were in and I was so embarrassed not to know (I was always a teachers pet). I'm not sure when it happened, but between counting Canada geese at the local water treatment plant and observing the crows on campus for my final paper, I was hooked. By the end of the class, I was signing up for any extra birding trip I could and going out birding with friends on the weekends. I remember studying intensely for my Ornithology final that was to take place after a trip to Magee Marsh with Dr. Burtt, only to be told by Dr. Burtt the morning of our trip, that because I had an A in the class, I wouldn't have to take the test! It made my amazing birding time at Magee Marsh even better. That summer after Ornithology (and Island Biology), I went to Ecuador and the Galapagos and boy was that the birding experience of a lifetime. Looking back, it was all the experiences with Dr. Burtt that were my spark. He opened up a whole new way to see and hear the world and I will forever appreciate and remember him. [age 19]

Pamela Righter

I have enjoyed nature since I was a small child. I would bring frogs, toads and various other small creatures home much to my mother's horror. In 1984, my husband and I lived in the country. He worked in the city so I was left alone at our house which was on a small lake. I was walking our two German Shepherds around the lake as usual when I saw a bird that I had never seen before. It was tawny with a small crest and a black mask. I went back to the house to look through an old bird book left by the previous owners. I went page by page as I did not know how a bird book was organized. I finally found the bird in question...of course, it was a Cedar waxwing! I was hooked! Since then, I have traveled the world for birds. I have seen 3500 bird species and am planning on another trip soon. [age 33]

Jax Nasimok

I had always been interested in nature when I was young, but I never had a particular focus. This changed when my spark birding experience occurred when I was about 7, right around my birthday. It was a quiet weekend and my dad showed me the movie "The Big Year". He mentioned to me before we watched it that if I didn't like it, we could just stop it and watch something else. He wasn't really sure if I'd like it, but we watched it straight through without interruption. I was enthralled by the movie, the variety of birds I never knew existed, the rarities, the determination of all the birders. The two sections that I remember being the most influential were Attu, and the Texas Fallout. The Attu sections had my heart racing for "a view of the rarity" while the swirling flocks over high island in Texas simply amazed me, and the story of the migrant Ruby-throated Hummingbird was so incredible to me. At the end of the movie, after watching the credits (another section I loved), I jumped off the couch and ran to the living room window. This is one of the few times in my life where I can remember every single detail, even what I was thinking. I walked through the kitchen, thinking I could do a big year, and thinking the first bird I could get would be a House Sparrow or a Mourning Dove. Looking out the window, I scanned under the feeder and saw nothing, immediately feeling disappointed. That was until I looked at the niger feeder and I saw my "first" American Goldfinch, my first "lifer". I had seen them in the past, but this was the first bird on my new list. I can still think of the rush I felt seeing that bird. I hadn't thought of it while I walked to the window and it had surprised me (although I believe we had them quite frequently). I told my dad I was going to do a big year, and he instead suggested I make a life list. I grabbed a piece of sketchbook paper, and I started writing down all of the birds I had seen. I think I got to about 15-20 or so. That summer, when we went birding, that meant going to the ponds to look for birds, and it wasn't long until I got to around 50 or so birds (I believe Green Heron was my 51st). [age 7]

Fran Kerbs

Around 2011, my sister and I loved to travel backroads of Saskatchewan, taking landscape and nature photos. Then Dad passed away mid 2011, and not long after that, Mom was cleaning things out, and asked me: "what should I do with these bird guides of your Dad's?" and I replied, "oh, I'll take them, we do wonder about what species we're looking at when we're exploring Sask. (Dad had been a bird lover, helped at the banding station at Last Mountain Regional Park, and had feeders at the Riverside Cemetery.) As well, he loved to talk about the birds when I visited him and mom in BC. So my first "spark" bird was when Dad and I were leaning over the apartment balcony laughing at the California Quail as they ran fast through the parking area. Little did he know that after he passed away I'd become a birder! The birders in our City were a great help with ID questions (etc.), and now 12 years later, I've finished my areas for the breeding bird atlas, have entered many checklists on eBird, and will be doing my third year of a breeding bird survey route, and now can't "turn off" IDing them when I hear them anywhere... in a movie, etc! It's enriched my life in so many ways. However, possibly when I was too small to see out our front window (pre age 5), I do remember Dad lifting me up to look out the front window to the bushes just below, in winter, to see the Bohemian Waxwings. It must have impressed me a lot as I've never forgotten, when I have few other memories that early. My spark bird was both the BOWA and CAQU. [age 5]

Ann Bradley

In March of 1997 my husband and I were hiking various locals around the Olympic Peninsula. Neither of us had been there before and although we hiked in significant rain fall we saw plenty of colorful birds. Being in the middle of nowhere we weren't able to buy a bird book to identify what we were seeing, until we arrived in Port Angeles to take a ferry to Victoria British Columbia. The bird that we saw on the ferry that sticks most in my mind is the king eider.

When we got back home to Tampa I found new birds every day for months. Needless to say birding is my passion, and everywhere we have lived and visited since then, the first thing we do is find our new birding locations. [age 31]

Elizabeth Abood-Carroll

In the 1970-1980's my grandmother was a girl scout camp host all summer on small lake in mid-Michigan. My sisters and I would take turns staying with her. As an early adolescent I was not no crazy about camp life, i.e. the latrine, but spending time my grandmother at the camp encouraged a love of nature that has lasted my whole life. As an adult, I was looking for a volunteer opportunity and joined the board at Michigan Audubon. My grandmother was thrilled and gifted all her bird books to me. A few weeks after joining the board, I had a what appeared to be a white sandhill crane in our field outside of Perry MI. I later learned this was a precious whooping crane! Yep, I was hooked. I am still amazed the rarest bird I ever saw was in my own backyard. [age 45]

Chris Campbell

Can I tell a spark people story? The principal of my elementary school, Ethel Staudacher (we knew her as Miss Staudacher) was a stalwart of the Bay City, MI chapter of the Michigan Audubon Society. She would hand out packets of bird cards to kids who seemed interested. My father, John S. Campbell, M.D., was a devoted birder. We honor important people by repeating their names. Dad attended the University of Michigan on a pre-med curriculum that left scant room for electives, to his chagrin. One that he squeezed in, ornithology, changed his life forever. He loved it. He always used that story to encourage breadth in education, learning not just for vocation but for life. I recall a local Audubon outing at the State Park, led by Miss Staudacher and attended by Dad and at least one of his kids, me. Adults like these taught children that the natural world around us deserved attention and respect. All four of Dad's kids keep their feeders filled, have a pair of binoculars at hand, and can identify the regional birds. Two of them are expert, one having an M.A. in ornithology and the other a PhD in botany but a current focus on avian life. The other two of us are amateurs. But it's clear that adults teach by personal example and behavior in ways that they may not know. [age 10]

Philip Y

So much effort goes into banding birds without realizing they are banding us back!

To prove my point it was only the second day I hung a feeder and as I reached out to fill it a Chickadee landed wrapping its little claws around my index finger- ( I swear it sounded like it said "gotcha") and needless to say I was banded as sure as any bird has been. 

Now if you don't believe that bird put a spell on me tell me why that feeder has not been empty in 35 years!

Glad to have the chance to tell you the story.

By the way did you know that Chickadees are one of very few creatures that regrows brain tissue shedding and regrowing 25% per year. [age 35]

Jeanne Waful 

Well, I feel both cheated and blessed... cheated because it's such an ordinary bird and blessed because I was pulled into the natural world so young. Every year since I can remember, an American Robin had her nest just outside our kitchen window. I'm talking 3 feet from view. Every year, a Robin showed up, laid eggs that hatched and raised them to fledging and I got to watch every day. As a child, I practically lived outdoors. I explored the woods, the ponds, everything. I would lay a sheet out on the ground in the early morning, lie on it and just look up and listen and take it all in. [age 2]

Julie Bastedo

My uncle Agricola and auntie Violet had a camp in Old Forge. They passed so long ago that I couldn't tell you on which lake or road the camp was situated, but I can see the slightly torn screen door, encased in ancient wood, battered from years of opening and closing by children rushing out to see the fireflies as night approached. I grew up in the country, so the thrill of these summer days and nights at the camp was less about being out in nature; I was always surrounded by nature. No, the thrill came from being on the water. There was something magical about watching the sun scatter across the water, the splashing of children off of docks, and, of course, the first time I really noticed a bird. 

We were red-faced from the sun and sticky from what seemed like an endless supply of ice pops, marshmallows, and potato chips. My grandmother got us bathed and into our nightgowns, and then we stole away from our beds and back onto the porch to swing while the grownups played cards. And I heard the most beautiful sound. It frightened me at first. My cousin Chris said that there was a ghost on the water that scared children back into their beds. Ten months my senior, he always seemed to know how to keep us in line and laugh at the same time. Then, I heard it again. And again. It seemed to echo across the water. I ran down the steps of the porch in bare feet that would now be sand-crusted once again and headed toward the dock. The sounds got more frantic and then calmed again. And then the wail. I was entranced. I saw, just near the edge of the neighboring dock, a shape I thought was a duck but with a head as black as night. The common loon. 

The details of this first intentional encounter (though my grandmother told me that I'd heard them long before but paid little attention) were filled in over the years as I became more and more interested in birds. I'd get a feeder for Christmas, and my cousin Chris would say, "remember when Julie ran to the water to see that stupid loon?" I'd wander from my family in my teens, looking for solitude when on a raucous vacation, and my father would ask, "Looking for loons?"

I've loved birds for as long as I can remember, and I love that I've been able to share my love with my children and my students. But there was something about this one encounter that held me positively captivated. It was as if, rather than I a casual observer, the loons noticed me. Hello there! they cried. And welcomed me into their world. [age 9]

Ben

I was crossing a river on a bridge in Olympic national Park in Washington state. I saw some movement and heard some noise and got out my binoculars, and I saw my very first cedar waxwing. The bright colors on the tips of its feathers were astounding. I couldn't believe such contrast existed. [age 32]

Kristal Stidham

After 36 years living in Arizona, I moved to Big Bend National Park in Texas. A flock of Brown-headed Cowbirds visited my feeder and I loved their vocalizations. I then started noticing how many birds were unfamiliar to me down there and the target-rich environment turned me from a casual fan into a real birder. [age 37]

Bruce Ackerman

I was on a long hike on the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey, along a long narrow ridge, in 1972. Turkey Vultures kept soaring past, not too far away. I didn't know what they were. Their flying skills were so amazing. Then I wandered into a nature center there, and saw the Golden Guide to Birds for sale. I was so interested in the maps showing seasonal ranges and dates each species would migrate into your area. And the sonograms of their songs. I was surprised that there was so much interesting information packed into that little book. I immediately bought the book and have been a birder ever since. Now field guides have 10 times as much information, but I really like that little book and still have several copies.  [age 19]

Hedy B.

It's a bit petty, but one sister of mine seemed to know a lot about birds and I got jealous and wanted to know as much! I started looking at backyard birds and in nearby parks, got a bird guide, signed up on some birding websites so I could learn more. I joined a birding challenge that led me to different parks and I learned about different birds in the area. My really great finds were a scarlet tanager (I was so excited!) and a very rare, for my part of the country, Ibis and then a Spoonbill. These were really exciting finds for me! I'm still learning and gaining knowledge, thanks to some sibling rivalry!  [age 42]

Alida Franco

My spark bird experience can be described as twofold: both experiences occurring about 20 years apart. someone had suggested a trip to Monte Vista, Colorado to view the sandhill cranes, which was something previously unheard of to me . but I invited a couple of family members and we headed out to the area which was about a 3 and 1/2 to 4-hour drive. It was March and overcast. when we arrived at the wildlife reserve, we were amazed to see thousands of birds dancing and karooing in an elaborate symphony of sound. It was just mesmerizing. But low and behold, in the middle of the entire group was a single whooping crane, whose code of white feathers stood out dramatically amongst the grayness of its surroundings . I was really taken by the whole experience, the beauty of it all, and the power of nature to an excite and captivate.

My second spark bird experience was equally as amazing. I was on sand Padre Island to visit a friend and had a lot of time on my hands so I would walk up and down the beach endlessly . I was fascinated with the shorebirds, and in particular the sanderlings that just raced back and forth chasing the waves . I was in total delight watching their behavior. they were just so incredibly charming! of course, I enjoyed the other shorebirds as well, as there were many. But this particular bird caught my eye and stood out. They just seem so enchanting! I ended up purchasing a drawing of those same sanderlings from a local artist, and this frame drawing now hangs in my bedroom for viewing every day. It was this second experience that finally launched me into the activity of birding. I haven't turned back since then. [age 50]

Rafaela Spalding

I'm from southeast Brazil, I'm autistic and birds are my "special interest."

When I was a child, all I could talk about was animals, especially birds. None of my family members understood much about birds, but my grandpa liked to support my passion. He gifted me a book about the birds of the Atlantic Forest. It wasn't a field guide; it was actually a hefty book with a single bird species per page, but it quickly became one of my most cherished possessions. I ran around with that book, attempting to identify all the birds around me. Due to the impracticality of the book, I rarely managed to determine the species before the bird flew away.

One day, while observing birds at my grandpa's house in the city of Ubatuba, state of São Paulo, I spotted a stunning blue bird I had never seen before. It was larger and more vibrant than the familiar Blue Dacnis (Dacnis cayana) and had the loveliest white belly. I hurriedly flipped through the pages of my large book... until I found it: a swallow tanager (Tersina viridis). I successfully identified it before it took off, allowing me time to admire that beautiful specimen. After it flew away, I couldn't contain my excitement and spent the day telling everyone I met about what I had seen. That experience changed my life forever, and I became a dedicated birder... well, as dedicated as a 6-year-old with very limited autonomy could be! [age 6]

Caleb

I remember laying on the sofa, lazily scrolling through YouTube, when I stumbled upon a video titled something like "Cockatiel repeating songs" and I was intrigued by the way the parrot sang, the look on its face, the composure, overall by the way it looked and behaved. And one video lead to another, until this interest I had developed into a full blown passion for birds, shaping my dream to become a biologist into becoming an ornithologist working for a bird sanctuary / rehabilitation center for birds of prey.

That video shaped me so much that I became the "bird guy" in my friend group, and everyone around me asks me to identify birds every time they get the occasion to. I love it, I love lovings birds as it helped me come out of a dense cloud of uncertainty of what to do in the future.

I'll forever remember cockatiels being the first bird I was hooked on. [age 11]

Lauren Ledesma

My spark bird was introduced to me by my 1 year old. We moved into a new house with huge windows and surrounded by shrubs and trees. He was entranced by the little birds that hopped around and sang. He would babble at us about the birds and I knew I wanted to encourage any natural naturalist tendencies. So I looked up the name of the little birds. White-crowned sparrows! We then identified the mourning doves and scrub jays that occasionally visited. The floodgates opened! We have an identification guide and a "Common Backyard Birds of Northern California" and multiple bird feeders. Over a year later and we are landscaping our backyard with natives for pollinators and birds and we have a designated "bird watching chair" and bird art all over the windows. My almost 3 year old has mostly moved on to trucks but the rest of the family are confirmed backyard birders! [age 32]

Nicole Alexander

I took an ornithology course in college because I liked the professors, not necessarily birds (I was always a "reptiles" girl). I already owned binoculars that I used for stargazing so I went out on my old one day to look for birds, in the winter of upstate New York. I walked through the snow until I saw a group of birds on a small, leafless tree with red berries at the edge of campus. I looked through my binoculars and was shocked to see bright red and yellow spots on what I assumed was going to be a drab brown bird. "What IS that?" I also saw that the birds had a crest, like a cardinal. I thought only cardinals had a crest. "What IS THAT?" I frantically flipped through the pages of my eastern bird guide, terrified the birds would fly away before I could identify them. [age 22]

Benjamin Costello 

We have a Holly tree just below my bedroom window. One day in mid-February, I was in my room when I heard a very loud and repetitive bird song. The bird kept singing loudly for maybe 10 minutes. I had never really paid attention to birds and bird song before, but this was so noticeable and long, I decided to walk outside to the tree to see if I could find the bird. In the tree was a male Northern Cardinal, and he sat there singing his song on an early spring-like afternoon for another few minutes. I thought it sounded pretty and also as though I could hear his longing for spring and for companionship, and that resonated with me. At the time, I had just started going on walks in my neighborhood to relieve stress and anxiety, and suddenly I found myself noticing all the Northern Cardinals calling and singing since I now knew what they sounded like. And as I got familiar with Northern Cardinals, I wanted to see if I could find some other birds, so I grabbed a field guide and went to the local wetlands, where I quickly found three Red-bellied Woodpeckers calling and chasing each other, presumably trying to establish territory. It was fascinating, and I had to know more and I had to start paying attention to the drama and beauty of the natural world that I had never noticed before. I signed up for Ebird...and then a few days later, everything shut down because of the pandemic, and I had basically infinite time to explore empty trails all day. I'll call both the Northern Cardinal and the Red-bellied Woodpecker my dual spark birds for that reason. [age 23]

Kayla Fisk

My spark bird is the chuck-wills-widow. My family always had bird feeders and were casual birders for as long as I can remember. I of course, joined in, but what started the spiral of obsession was one nice summer night. I like most warm nights, had my window open, listening to the eastern whip/poor-wills and calling (which I didn't learn til much later in life was unusual, that this bird that I took for granted wasn't so common everywhere) and American woodcocks displaying. That night though, I heard a different sound, very similar to the whip-poor-will, but something was off. I remember getting out of bed and waking my parents to tell them there was a weird bird outside. I don't remember how I figured out what bird it was at that time, this was before Merlin and eBird and back when you called a number to leave a recording on a phone number to report any rare birds. Eventually my parents agreed on my possible id and the next day mentioned it to a friend who also was a birder, they of course didn't believe my id at first either, I was just a kid after all. After a day or so to think on it, they realized I knew what a whip-poor-will sounded like, I would know what wasn't one, and decided to swing by that night, after all, it would be nice to hear a whip-poor-will at the very least as they were very uncommon in the region. The surprise was evident on the friends face when, just as I said, a chuck-wills-widow and several whip-poor-wills began calling several yards away from us. Many calls were made, people notified and the next several nights our long driveway was full of cars from people all over the state for this mega-rarity. People from Cornell, birders of all skills and ages. Until then I really wasn't aware of how deep this bird 'obsession' could be, I really hadn't thought about how their were careers around them, how many birds were really out there and the community that was build around people's love for these amazing creatures. This very lost bird had introduced me to the birding community. It was also an awesome bonus to stay up past my bedtime to listen to all these peoples birding stories as they waited for the Chuck-wills-widow to begin calling each night for more than a week. [age 12]

JWP

My spark birds. I have two. 

The first one. 

When I was 10 years old, my parents rented an old house surrounded by a neglected apple orchard, a huge vegetable garden gone to weed, thickets of raspberries and redcurrants and scrubby woods with giant puffballs and fungus scabbed trees that could have been extras in a horror film. It was located halfway up a hill on a narrow one-way street with no neighbors or street lights. No one came to our house on Halloween, it was deemed too scary even by my friends. 

The house had been the first schoolhouse in the area, built in the 1800s. It had been added onto in a slapdash manner - the bedrooms upstairs were reached by a staircase that had been put into an old closet and was steep enough to qualify as a ladder, as we often put our hands on the upper stairs when climbing up and went down backwards. 

It had last been the home of a University professor of biology and his family.The professor had made brown and cream tiles for the fireplace surround showing the evolution of life from amoebas to dinosaurs, to mammals, apes and humans. When he passed away, his wife rented the old creaky house to us and moved to a cozy apartment.

We didn't know much about the birds that filled the woods around us, so my parents bought a little feeder and put it up outside the kitchen window, and a Golden Guide to identify our guests. We saw all the regular feeder visitors and wrote the dates in the little Golden Guide. 

The house had a screen porch on the side surrounded by thick bushes I now know were yews.There was a cherry tree overhanging it and lilies of the valley around the ankles of the porch steps. One summer, a pair of Cardinals decided this was an ideal site to set up house and raise the kids. My parents decreed the porch off limits while the Cardinals raised their brood, so we watched the progress through the bubbled old glass of the living room window. The slow motion count down was excruciatingly long to my young self, from nest building to incubation to finally, the first chirps and squeaks as bug deliveries were shuttled in by the parents. All we could see at first were the tips of beaks above the edge of the nest. As the chicks grew, heads began poking up, yellow rimmed gapes pointed to the incoming mom or dad. 

We watched the whole cycle of nesting to birth, to mousy brown and still flightless youngsters hopping around inside the shrub white their parents tried to herd them back to safety. And then they were gone and we could go out on the porch again. They had become "our" cardinals during the summer and we speculated if visitors to the feeder on the other side of the house were our family. 

My second bird. 

Two years after we lived in the school house, my parents bought an old farmhouse on a former sod farm just outside the city. The derelict barn still stood behind the house, a magnetic attraction for kids. We climbed the beams and played in the piles of hay in our own private kingdom. The road in front of the house was dusty gravel and a few minutes walk out of the back door brought us to corn fields of the next farm. We had no neighbors until the former farm was subdivided and houses began to be built.

I would take the dog and go on long rambles into the countryside, along the lightly traveled roads and across the fields. These walks didn't have a particular purpose, I just liked being outdoors seeing how things had changed since I last walked that way. 

On one ramble in early winter the road was slicked with a skin of ice and the grasses were crunchy underfoot and etched with frost crystals. An ice storm the night before had silvered the landscape. At the top of the hill I saw a puddle with a bubbly white crust of ice begging to be stomped. Twigs from a small shrub had bent into the puddle from the ice weight. I noticed a small blob of feathers stuck to the ice where the twigs bent over. I looked closer and saw a sparrow, ice dusting its feathers. I picked it up, thinking it had frozen, but felt a small pulse of life. I stuck the soggy bundle of fluff inside my parka against my chest. As it warmed, it began to stir, not with fear, but more nestling into the comfort of the heat it was receiving. I talked to it as I walked and felt its spark returning. After a while it shook itself as if to say, OK I'm back, so I lifted it out and let it sit on my palm, almost weightless now that it was dry. It sat very calmly for a few minutes then flew off. I wished it a happy life and continued my walk, but it was a changing experience, to feel that tiny life resurrect over my heart. 

Neither of these sparks immediately turned me into a passionate birder, as I was occupied with teen drama, moving away for college and the not terribly exciting life of a broke 20 something in NYC. I wasn't aware of the birds packed into Central Park because that oasis in its concrete surround didn't fit my stereotype of where you find birds. But the embers still simmered and when we moved to Long Island, which felt like a place where I could find "real" nature, I put up a feeder at our new house and bought a guide book, Roger Tory Peterson's this time, as I was ready for much more information. And the birds came, each with unique qualities observed from the kitchen window. I made notes in the margins of the guide book, and felt the urge for more, to see those birds that were in the book, but not my yard. I joined the local Audubon chapter and went on walks, learning from the more experienced birders who were happy to share their passion. Eventually I became an experienced birder, though there wasn't a moment that I could pinpoint that transition, and there is still so much more to learn and see. Now I pass it along as a trip leader, assuring new converts that everyone starts from square one, makes mistakes, and expands their knowledge. That it's a process that can take a lifetime, but a lifetime of excitement and challenges with every season. [age 10]

Anonymous

I was working as a young field biologist surveying for wildlife in Polk County, FL. There were pastures with open fields. I started noticing small hawk like birds hovering above fields. It wasn't one of my target species but for some reason I had to know what it was. After that I starting finding myself noticing more and more birds that I had to know. The rest is history! [age 25]

George Crafts

My "spark bird" was a book: Audubon's "Birds of America ". Looking through the many beautiful drawings it contains, I was utterly fascinated, and that attraction to birds has never left me. I first saw the book in my grandfather's home when I was a child. "Dee Dee" as we called him was one of my heroes in those days. He and grandmother lived 800 miles away from us, so we only saw them once a year. While we were visiting I would spend hours going through his large collection of picture books about animals from all over the world, but "Birds of America" was my favorite. I remember especially being impressed by the wild turkey, the first picture in the book, and the magnificent dark eagle, the one he thought was a new species. The drawings of birds now extinct also had a powerful impact on me. Many years passed before I actually began to explore birding, but I know that book is behind it all - and now I have my own copy! [age 6]

Jennifer Fendya

It was early in the pandemic - 2020 - and I was walking in Forest Lawn cemetery in Buffalo, NY. I can't recall the exact time of year, but I know there were leaves on the trees and it was a beautiful sparkly day. I grew up with a backyard bird feeder my parents tended daily and I knew the birds common to our area, like robins, bluejays, cardinals, crows, seagulls, sparrows, and can identify those with iconic visuals like hawks, herons, goldfinches and woodpeckers. But on that day in Forest Lawn, when I saw a blue flash whizz by me along the Scajaquada creek bed making a "chittering" call, I called back, "Kingfisher!!!" I wasn't sure where my response came from, as I'd never owned a birding guidebook or remember encountering this particular avian performance before. I thought about the Fisher King of Arthurian legend, protector and embodiment of the land, and also about being thrilled as a child by the daring aerial acrobatics of the Blue Angels. After sitting for a while to watch the noisy back-and-forth fly-by, enraptured and entertained, I had enough descriptors to Google my new friend. I was bursting with excitement when "Belted Kingfisher" turned up, so, proud of this personal "first," I texted friends and family my good news and received back their kind congrats. I felt extremely joyful, even without knowing that I'd just met my Spark Bird! [age 57]

Ryan

Saw a family of crows attacking a Merlin hawk while the hawk tried to hunt.  [age 15]

Ellen Tomczak

We built a house in a rural area, moving from the city. I received a bird feeder and bird seed as a house warming gift. I put it up in my yard. One day I spotted a beautiful bird I had never seen before. I had to buy a book, since it was the spring of 1995 and I couldn't google it. Next came binoculars. I began to see more and more birds. I was hooked! I joined a bird group through our local science museum. I have been birding ever since that spring day. I have traveled around the United States with this group, searching for new birds to see. My life list is just under 500 birds. My spark bird is the Rose breasted grosbeak.  [age 43]

Kathy Contrino

My spark bird is the Bald eagle. When I was a child eagles were endangered due to pesticides. I knew they existed but had never observed one in the wild. My first observation was at Iroquois NWR. I cry sometimes when I see them in the wild. I know their continued existence is a testament to what we can do if we set our mind to it. Resilience is a choice and we can all make that choice in the face of climate change.   [age 8]

Judy Liddell 

Four years before I retired, I 'stumbled' into birding. While I had been fascinated with birds - even using them in my home décor, I never thought I had the patience to really slow down and pay attention to them.

That all changed when I had my knees replaced in early 2002. My friend Barbara, a long-time birder, hung some seed bells in the bushes outside my bedroom window - and I started paying attention to my visitors. I found a field guide that had belonged to my Dad and tried to identify my new friends, calling Barb frequently to tell her about what I was seeing. Heartened by my enthusiasm, Barbara hung a suet cake in the bush, and soon a Curve-billed Thrasher paid a visit.

I was enthralled. Here was a bird that was not little and seemingly drab - but larger, with a yellow eye and long curved bill. I was hooked.

As I recovered and learned to walk again with two new knees, I went to the Rio Grande Nature Center on the weekend, walked slowly, and then sat on a bench and tried to identify birds. I devoured Kingbird Highway and took my field guide to bed every night to study. This was the beginning of what would become my 'second career' when I retired 4 years later. [age 59]

Mimi Darragh 

In May of 1974 after graduating from college, a group of us traveled to Canada. We were able to find a fisherman to take us out around Bonaventure Island off the coast of Quebec. Since it was nesting season, we could not land on the island but there were thousands of seabirds flying all around us: gannets and murres mostly and of course we were looking for puffins that were pretty rare at that time. It was the experience of all the birds flying, soaring, diving all around us that hooked me to find out more about birds. [age 21]

Haley Pond

I first got into birding during my senior year of high school when I took a Zoology class through Jamestown Community College. The entire spring semester of the class was spent studying birds! Our teacher, Mr. Jankowski, gave us weekly ID, sound, and scientific name quizzes. I always hated taking quizzes, until they were about identifying birds. It became almost like a game to me, and I completely fell in love with trying to identify birds and their calls. Mr. Jankowski was also my golf coach, so we spent a lot of time birding while on the golf course and on the drive to matches. I realized I was hooked on birds when I spent more time birding during a golf match than actually playing golf! Golf courses and my high school biology class are really where I found my passion for birding.  [age 18]