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

Anonymous

My spark bird is the chickadee. I don't go birding often, but I bring my field guides and binoculars when I'm on hikes and follow accounts that post daily bird photos. I think that's all thanks to my Dad! One day, I must have been 6 or 7, we went to my local nature preserve. We were just planning to hike a bit, get lunch, and go home, but we encountered this old lady on the trail who brought in contraband birdseed. She was hand feeding a little bird, I kind of forgot what bird exactly, but it flew away and she offered me some birdseed. My Dad told me to take it, so I did, and waited for about 3 or so minutes holding my hand out before a little Black Capped Chickadee flew down from a tree above and ate from my 7-year-old hand. My Dad managed to snap a few photos before it flew away, and we continued walking. A few years later, he gave me a field guide and a pair of his binoculars, and like I said, I bring them whenever we go hiking. [age 7]

Cait

The year was on or about 2014. I had a friend that often went to a local nature preserve to walk around and take nature in. One day she invited me and told me that she liked to bring songbird specific seed around the winter months to leisurely feed the birds (I know this is somewhat of a controversial issue, however, some preserves allow it in designated areas and in specific seasons) this particular local preserve had a tonnn of black-capped chickadees (I didn't know the species at the time). I thought they were the cutest little birds. I was hesitant to feed them but my friend told me if I put some bird seed on my hand, they'd land. I tried it, and was immediately in awe of these little birds. This small but mighty bird trusted me enough to land ever so gently on my hand. From there on out I was hooked on birds and wanting to know everything about them. I learned that black-capped chickadees are so important for migrating bird species and letting them know of predators and where to get food. Ever since then I had a strong appreciation for birds of all kinds. I even started an inclusive hiking group with a friend called queershike716 to share my love for all things bird and nature. [age 21]

Tracy Kirchhoff

I have found my interest in birds growing. It connects 3 generations of my family to talk about birds.

My 89 year old mother feeds the birds and talking about what she sees at her feeders is such a joy to her. When I am at the house with her we talk a lot about what she sees. Recently she had birds there she has never had at her feeders. I was able to identify for her these little house finches. They were there on a day where it was snowy and white. Their bright color stood out so vividly. It has never happened that I could identify a bird for my Mother. It has helped strengthen and enhance our relationship with all our recent bird discussions.

At times she and I along with my 20 year old son all talk birds. [age 59]

Esme K

A couple of summers ago, I saw a bright orange flash zip through my backyard. I asked my dad about a "bright orange bird" and he told me it was an oriole. I was amazed that birds could be that colorful. Afterward, I started watching more from my backyard, and each new bird-cardinals, blue jays, black-capped chickadees-gave me another spark. I downloaded eBird and Merlin, checked out some local birding groups, and began exploring beyond my backyard. I even got a little pair of binos to boot!

Birding is now a beloved hobby of mine. I'm still very much a beginner, but that's okay-I love discovering new birds. When I'm hiking now, I do a lot more looking up than I used to! [age 24]

Hannah Buschert

I started birding because of a required college course when I was working on my BS in Natural Resource Management. It required that I take two courses out of three options and "Biology of Birds" fit into my schedule. The professor punctuated each lesson with a clip from Sir David Attenborough's Life of Birds DVD, which I have since purchased and re-watch regularly. I wasn't absorbing much from the course, because I didn't care that much. Then we got to the midterm and the first question was "How does a Dark-eyed Junco fly?". I had no idea and stared at the paper for a long time before making up an answer and moving on. That made me feel like I actually needed to commit myself to learning something, so my then-boyfriend/now-husband and I started going out to learn more about birds... and study for this class.

The next term I took a conservation biology course in which I found myself in a wetland with several other students for a group project. I remember being hot, sweaty in knee deep muck and a bird flying over. Someone asked "what bird is that?" And I responded, "that's a Red-winged Blackbird". They thought I made it up, because their name is so well-suited to the bird. That is the first bird I remember identifying on my own and it just came to my mind like it had always been there. I call that my Spark Bird, because it was the first one I ever IDed! [age 20]

Anonymous

I remember being out in my back yard at age 7 and thinking that summer would not last forever and that I would miss it when winter came back. I remember listening to a blue jay's call. I took my tape recorder (a favorite toy) and recorded him singing. I played back the recording when the winter returned and felt a sense of nostalgia. [age 7]

Aaron N.K. Haiman (A Birding Naturalist)

The bird I credit as my spark bird was dead.

When I was 6 years old, attended a class on raptor identification for kids taught by Allen Fish who at that time was the director of a raptor migration counting organization called the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. As I walked in the front door of the building, I passed a taxidermy White-tailed Kite. I said to my mom, who was the one taking me to this class, "Look a Black-shouldered Kite!" Note that back in the day, this was the correct common name for this species. Allen happened to be standing nearby and heard my identification. I loved the class and Allen took note of me. I started attending every class or nature walk that Allen lead, soaking up his bird and nature knowledge like a sponge. A few years later, at the ripe old age of 9, I began volunteering for the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, and I continued to volunteer for 20 years. I also expanded to volunteering with other bird organizations, countless bird walks on my own or with others, college and grad school studying birds, a career as an Environmental Scientist, science communication using various social media platforms, and an ongoing obsession with birds! The whole path of my life can be traced back to Allen and that dead White-tailed Kite. [age 6]

Sierra

I had always loved nature as a child, and had this field guide full of birds titled "Birds of Connecticut" that had an indigo bunting on the cover. I don't think that was my sparkbird entirely, but it definitely stuck with me, especially for my first encounter with my "sparkbird" that really got me curious about birding.
I was in NYC in 8th grade going to a conference on feral cat TNR. It was just me and my father (who's not a very nature-y or bird-y guy) at the time, and we were in a super urbanized, gray area. Under one tree, on the sidewalk, there was a flock of pigeons, and amongst that flock was a little bright yellow bird I had never seen before. I was instantly curious and mesmerized and excited by the bird, and only much later did I learn that it was a yellow warbler. [age 13]

Anonymous

Since I was young I've always liked to identify any wildlife I'd come across while hiking, so I was fairly familiar with many of my local bird species. But my spark bird that finally got me into birding was a wood duck at my local pond. I was taking a nice summer walk with my friend and noticed a strange colorful duck that stuck out from the mallards crowded around it, sparking my curiosity. I had also just gotten a new camera after years of thinking about trying wildlife photography. In a need to document as many living things as I could, I started birding and actually going out looking for birds to add to my life list, also adding to my catalog of life at the same time! I love going out and searching for new species of anything now! [age 18]

Autumn S.

I have always loved animals since as young as I can remember and this included birds. As a young child I loved seeing birds in my yard, especially the chickadees. My grandparents had a humming bird feeder and it was so exciting to watch the humming birds from their kitchen window. They also had a blue bird house where I got to watch the blue birds and swallows fight over it. My grandpa had a big barn where I watched pigeons and swallows. The whole family gathered when a great horned owl showed up in the barn! It was amazing, but I was a little sad because it ate my favorite unique colored pigeon. I would stop and look up every time the great blue heron would fly over (he flew along the creek behind our house). I remember the thrill of seeing my first goldfinches at an elderly friends bird feeder and being ecstatic when I was 12 and saw my first eagle. When my Dad would get home from work in the evenings he would tell us he had heard a screech owl. I remember the heart break when one night he walked in holding the dead owl. He had found it in front of our house, hit by a car. My family vacationed at a wild life refuge most years where I got to observe and learn about shore birds. I found the piping plovers so fascinating as they ran back and forth avoiding the waves and felt special that I got to see a threatened species nest. Once I lured a laughing gall close enough to catch. I held him for a few moments as he loudly protested and my siblings and I gently felt his soft feathers. When I let him go he flew off to the roof where he sat and scolded me for my foolishness, but then promptly accepted the bread crumbs I offered as an apology for bothering him. I would pick up feathers, empty egg shells, and fallen birds nest and inspect them then leave them on my porch to look at until they blew away. If I found a baby bird fallen from a nest I would put it back. I even raised and released a little sparrow! When my husband and I moved into our house I was overjoyed to hear an owl. It took 8 years before we saw it, a barred owl, when my daughter spotted it less than a mile away from our home! It wasn't until last year, when I picked up an injured turkey vulture from the side of the road in the middle of winter and delivered it to the Cornell lab of ornithology, that I realized I was a birder. I don't have one obvious "spark" moment, but rather a childhood love of birds that "sparked" a life long love of them! This "spark" was naturally encouraged by living in the country with parents and grandparents who could tell me the names of the birds I saw and heard and took the time to point out special ones. [age 5]

Denise Kroetsch 

My spark bird story began with an article i stumbled across on the internet. The article was written by Katy Sewall and it is about 8 yr old Gabi Mann who feeds crows in her garden and they bring her presents.

I was on my farm in West Falls and I noticed when I feed my horses in the front pasture there were always 3 crows walking around in the pasture. I wondered if could entice to come closer? I started putting peanuts on the fence post hoping they would be interested.This went on for about a month but they only stayed in the pasture. Then 1 morning I put the peanuts as usual and as I walked back to the house I turned and saw them on the fence post.The next few months this was what we did every morning.

The next step I started to call them and put the peanuts on the post. It took another month before they would come when I called them. Eventually just 1 of the crows started watching me. I thought that was really amazing.
The bird started following me. I would go to the back pasture and it would fly over my head. I thought maybe it was a random so I asked my partner to call and see if they would come. They didn't. Eventually all 3 of the crows would fly over my head. All I had to do was yell crows and I could see them coming from far away.

This want on for months . Then 1 morning I was walking past the fence post and there was pretty piece of gravel on the fence post. I thought that was odd how did that get there? Then different objects would appear on the post I never saw them put the objects there but I am positive it was my special black feathered friend. [age 60]

Michelle Hatch

I figured that I would add to my original Spark bird story with my actual spark bird. My spark bird is is the Scarlet Tanager. This started as one of the tasks in the bird challenge a couple years ago. And I kept hearing this bird when I was out burning or hiking, but was unable to find it. One night while I was camping I could hear it within a couple feet of my campsite. So I went to investigate and literally followed this bird for probably a half a mile into the woods at night without my headlamp, lol. It got to the point where I would go hiking just to try to find this bird And every time I went out, I heard it, but could never actually see it. I have learned the Scarlet Tanger call and could pick it out anywhere. Until one day when I was hiking one of the ski trails in Allegheny State Park I heard it yet again but this time I was actually able to find it. I stood there and watched it for a good five minutes because I was so excited that I finally found it. That is definitely one of my most vivid memories. To this day, I call the Scarlett Tangier the where is Waldo of birds  [age 45]

Laura D. 

Although through my work I have overseen birding programs since 2017, I would not have called myself a birder until spring 2022. I'd been gradually getting more and more interested in birding, in large part because of the experience of COVID and a well visited window bird feeder, but I didn't think I was particularly good at it. In April 2022, I heard a new bird in our suburban backyard in Bethlehem, NY that I'd never heard before and just loved its sweet call. With the help of the Merlin App, I learned it was the Great Crested Flycatcher. I spent the next few weeks trying to catch a glimpse of one, but it always seemed to move so quickly from yard to yard. It was so frustrating! I became a little obsessed (and may have started to drive my family batty). Finally, one afternoon in early May while in our front yard I heard one and it finally stuck around long enough for me to see it. It actually put on a bit of a show, flying from tree to tree, back and forth across our street. I felt so much emotion in that moment--joy, relief, excitement. After that, my ability to locate by sight a bird I was hearing started to improve, as did my ability to identify birds by sound. It was a lesson in patience and persistence. Every spring I so look forward to hearing the Great Crested Flycatcher return to our neighborhood. [age 46]

Liz Roemer

I think a second significant moment for me around birding was the first time I "found" a bird that I was looking for. I had started using eBird and saw that people were seeing a green heron at Mt Auburn Cemetary, which is near our house. Someone had made a comment indicating that it was at Willow Pond, so my partner and I knew where to go to look for it. (I realized later that my uncle's ashes were buried right near Willow Pond - I knew they were at Mt Auburn because he was an avid birder, but I hadn't been a birder while he was alive and I'd forgotten the exact location.) We walked around the pond with our binoculars and saw other birders. We all asked each other if we'd seen the heron and no one had seen it. We kept walking around the pond, making peace with the reality that we wouldn't be seeing this lifer that day. As we looked at the pond and enjoyed the peaceful scene, I noticed some movement to my left, near the shore. I recognized it was a bird, but it was much smaller than I'd imagined a green heron would be (thinking of great blue herons, which I'd seen often). When I realized it was the green heron, I felt such a sense of accomplishment! It was fun to watch it crouched by the shore, looking for fish. And then as other birders, or just walkers came by, I quietly pointed it out to them and got to watch their joy when they saw it. I felt wonder at the bird, satisfaction with finding the bird we were looking for, and a sense of community and joy at being able to share that experience with others. This experience got me hooked on looking for specific birds, and helped me cultivate patience around trying to find them. It also fed my sense of cameraderie with other birders and the joy of sharing love of birds and appreciation of birds and bird behavior (from a respectful distance). When I learned that my uncle's ashes were buried nearby, it also made this particular viewing spot more special. My aunt's ashes are buried there now as well. This is always our first destination when we go to Mt Auburn and I always think of the two of them. I wish I'd appreciated their birding much earlier in my life, but I'm glad that I carry on their tradition (although I have only a fraction of their bird list!) [age 54]

Lee J.

I did not know about ibises the first time I saw one. I knew that I wanted to go to Australia for a year and look at lizards and recover from intense burnout from my failed attempt to start a PhD in Nebraska.

I was depressed, stressed, and wildly jetlagged in the middle of a strip mall in Brisbane, trying to find a store that would set me up with a cell phone contract.

And there was a dinosaur.

It was probably trying to steal a sandwich from a trash can, I don't really remember.

I just remember the visceral impact it had on me; it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, and seeing this ibis was the moment where I realised that I was somewhere with totally unique wildlife, and that I was actually starting fresh, for real.

The more I've learned about them, the more I admire them. They're adaptable, resilient birds. I look forward to seeing them every time I go back. [age 25]

Liz Roemer

My spark bird was a male cardinal. I saw it in either May or June of 2020 (it was hard to track time during lockdown). It was outside the french doors of my condo that lead to the deck. I saw it in a tree to the left of the deck, and then also on the railing of the deck. It was singing. I'm not sure why I noticed it on this day (I had, of course, seen cardinals before), but for some reason I was drawn to it and pointed it out to my partner. I think there was something about the sense of isolation we had during the Covid lockdown, in which we were both working from our home (and I was working right next to these french doors), that made the appearance of the bird, and my sense that it was talking to me, feel connective and meaningful. I then also saw a female cardinal. My partner and I named them Hank and Henrietta, and started seeing them regularly. A few days later my partner was in the hardware store and saw something called "cardinal food," which he brought home as a gift to me so that I could deepen my connection to Hank and Henrietta. I put the food out on a plate on our deck (I think it was sunflower seeds, but I don't fully remember that detail now). I enjoyed watched the cardinals come to it and of course then many other birds came as well, particularly house sparrows. Soon we upgraded to various kinds of bird feeders, went through a struggle with squirrels eating the food, and then finally accepted that we fed both birds and squirrels. It took a few more months before our relationship with birds on our deck extended to looking for and learning about birds on our walks, getting ebird and Merlin apps, etc. Last year, for our 15 year wedding anniversary, we got matching cardinal tattoos. As I said, I'm not sure why I particularly noticed Hank that first day - I wonder sometimes if he'd been there every day and I just hadn't noticed - but I think it was meaningful because it gave me a sense of connection and also hope. He was so beautiful and striking and it felt like he was responding to me "singing" back to him. I had been learning about plants on the walks my partner and I had been taking since March and so I was already feeling more connected to nature in general than prior to Covid lockdown, but this visit transferred my connection from plants to birds and it has only grown since then. Although I have come to love many, many birds, cardinals still hold a special place for me (and my partner). We have cardinal photographs and drawings around our house and whenever I see a cardinal I feel a small sense that everything will be okay, no matter how hard life is feeling. My connection to Hank and then to birds more broadly makes me feel more connected to nature and to the world at large. It feels like a manifestation of interconnectedness - that all beings are interconnected and effect each other. [age 52]

Penelope Pankow 

My first "real" job was working as a staff auditor for a large public accounting firm in downtown Detroit. I lived in a beautiful old apartment building whose lawn backed up to the Detroit River; we were very close to the Belle Isle Bridge, which led to Belle Isle, an island in the river that was entirely park land. I frequently went jogging on Belle Isle before work, so I would be there at about 6:00 AM. One morning as I approached one of the ponds on Belle Isle, I noticed something large on the pump house. It appeared to be some kind of animal - a large cat perhaps? When I got close enough I realized it was a Snowy Owl. S/he sat calmly, gazing at me and I stood still, awed by this marvelous creature. Not wanting to disturb him/her, and having to get to work on time, I slowly eased away, leaving this beauty in peace. When I arrived at work I was bubbling over with excitement from my bird encounter. When I told a couple of colleagues about it, their response was not awe or enthusiasm about what I had seen, but questioning what on earth I was doing on Belle Isle at 6:00 AM.

This event brought the wonder of the natural world to my attention. It also made me aware that I did not want to work with colleagues who did not share this wonder.  [age 26]

jwpines

I have already shared 2 stories on the website as JWP. But there was a bird that was an adult spark. My husband and I were visiting family in Wisconsin. His cousins had a lodge up in the north woods on an oxbow tannic lake near Lake Superior. In the early mornings we would take out kayaks, and it was so quiet and far from civilization, that the only sounds were water dripping off the paddle, wind in the pines, and a loon at the end of the lake. One morning I was up before everyone else and went down to the lake. Across the way I could see some deer drinking and even hear them. Suddenly a huge bird flew in and started attacking a tree, startling the deer back into the woods. it was a Piliated Woodpecker, a life bird for me. I watched it hammer at the bark, and wished it was closer. With that it launched into the air and flew across the lake, directly towards me. It was like seeing a pterodactyl. Then it landed on a tree right behind me, and started hammering away. I was showered with bark chips as it beat off hunks of bark. I stood like a statue for the time it was on the tree, I'm not sure how long. Then it abruptly took off, leaving me awestruck.  [age 40]

Anonymous

My partner and I share a spark bird of sorts, in that we both read a book about how great pigeons are and both kind of fell in love with them at about the same time.  Now we share pigeon stories all the time, both when we're together and when we're out and about on our own.  I have given him pigeon-themed cards and he has given me a pigeon plushie.  They're a thing that we share and bond over. [age 31]

et

As a child I lived in a rural area. We saw cardinals and other birds that we really didn't know the names of. I remember one bird in particular. This bird was small and yellow. My mother always called it a wild canary. It wasn't until I was much older I learned it was a Gold finch. I now knew the official name of the "wild canary ". A spark bird moment.  [age 10]

Dayna

This spring, I was taking a walk with my husband at a local nature preserve. Near the water, we heard a beautiful song being sung, and both of us said "what was that?!" We had never heard the sound before. All we saw was a flash of orange as the singer left their perch. Weeks later, we decided to join a local bird walk in Chicago, and we explained the story to the trip leader. On that walk, we saw our unidentified spark bird-- the humble and beautiful Baltimore Oriole. Since then, we've been fascinated by birds. [age 29]

Ava

I believe I have 2 spark birds, and I first "encountered" these birds via the Cornell Lab live cams. I can't remember how I came across Cornell live cam page, but I started watching in late April/early May of 2024. Big Red and Arthur's red-tailed hawk chicks were very young, and I started to check on them every day. I also started checking on Iris the osprey in Missoula. By the time she laid her eggs in June, I was a total bird convert and had started looking into birding organizations and opportunities in Chicago. I got into birding in the last couple months of my first year teaching, and I think it's what helped pull me through to the end of the year. Birding and learning about birds was also a welcome summer focus for me, and now that the school year has started again, birding feels like an important way to take care of myself and regularly connect with nature. So, long story short! My spark birds are the Cornell red-tailed hawks (Big Red, Arthur, and their two chicks that tragically died in July), and Iris the osprey and her family in Missoula (including her partner Finnegan and her two chicks this year Antali and Sum-eh). [age 31]

Candi Lynn Fite

Click here for the episode of Birding for Joy that shares this story! 

"You only have to love one bird to want to save all the birds." ~Amy Tan

My spark bird story is probably similar to many other stories from fellow birders. I saw a really great bird and I never looked back. While sitting on my back porch one day, a brilliant blue bird landed in a young Red Oak tree near me, belting out a cheerful Canary-like tune. I followed the bird all morning with binoculars and a book on Texas birds I'd located in my daughter's old room. Needless to say, I was hooked. I spent hours searching the Internet, learning all about the Indigo Bunting. I also spent all weekend watching birds with the old pair of hand-me-down binoculars.

Although I still have a deep appreciation for the charming male Indigo Bunting who ignited my passion for wild birds, it's not the bird, per se, that led me to be the birder I am today. It's what transpired after spotting him that transformed me from being a newbie birdwatcher to an avid birder with a purpose. Four days later, I fell head-over-binoculars in love with a young Barred Owl. I stumbled upon him in the woods near my home while following the rapid "dee-dee-dee" of what the Merlin Bird ID app identified as a Carolina Chickadee. The Chickadee's calls were overpowered by a relentless screeching as I approached closer. Merlin couldn't decipher the screech, but I knew it had to be a bird. Minutes later, I came eye to wide eye with a downy-feathered fluffy owlet perched on a low-hanging limb about twenty feet away. Flitting about on a branch above the owlet was the Carolina Chickadee scolding, "Dee-dee-dee!" Mesmerized, I stood watching the owl, watching me. A quick Google search proved the young one to be a Barred Owl. I backed away slowly to a safer distance in case the owl parents were around, and sat on the ground, observing the owlet's inquisitive, quirky behavior through my binoculars. Since determining the bird's sex was visually near impossible, I settled on a naïve decision of it being a male. I returned the next evening and the evening after that, for months. What began as a concern for the young owl's safety grew into a unique daily interaction. I was positively smitten with the owlet whom I named Chauncey, a name of English origin meaning "lucky" or "fortunate." After several weeks of careful observation, I figured Chauncey, who'd learned to fly during that time, was either on his own or his parents and siblings were extremely good at hiding. Chauncey was anything but shy.

Even after he began spending his days deeper in the woods, upon my arrival at the edge of the forest, he'd swoop out and perch on a low-hanging Post Oak limb where I'd sit quietly not too far, but not too close, and observe him with binoculars. Despite my presence, Chauncey did normal owl things such as preening, rotating his head to survey his surroundings, and occasionally dropping to the ground or another tree close by only to return with a squiggling lizard or buzzing cicada. At that time, he paid no interest in the silly squirrels that nested in the large oak tree, taunting him by scrambling from limb to limb near him. Once Chauncey started flying, he'd occasionally follow me home a few acres away and perch in a tree near my home, screeching for attention. I'd walk outside and tell him to go home and that until he found his "hoot," he was too young to venture that far. We continued this routine for a couple more months until one weekend when everything changed. The neighbors who owned the forest Chauncey lived in brought in a tractor and bulldozer, clearing and cutting. The following Monday evening after the commotion was over, Chauncey didn't fly out to greet me at the forest edge as he had done for nearly three months. After a week, I stopped looking for him. But I've never stopped wondering about him. What happened that weekend? Had the big machinery frightened him? Was his habitat destroyed? Had he left the area? Or perhaps he merely realized owls and humans aren't supposed to be companions? I hope the latter is the case, and if so, I'm glad he decided because I'm not certain I would've found the willpower to say goodbye.

These days, when I hear a Barred Owl hooting its signature, "Who cooks for you?" call deep in the woods, I like to believe it's Chauncey and how he finally found his hoot. I think about how my experience with the young Barred Owl changed me in ways that I will forever be grateful for. It's made me a better birder and a better human. It's motivated me to learn everything I can about habitat loss and recovery, biodiversity, conservation, the environment, and how to create change to help better support nature. In the most recent State of the Birds Report, the findings show that the United States and Canada have lost 3 billion breeding birds since 1970. The findings prove we must act. Bird conservation will not only benefit the wild birds, but also other wildlife, humans, and the planet. Everything I do now on our land and in the garden is done with the wild birds in mind, from what to plant and not plant to creating a bird-friendly habitat to keep the birds happy, safe, and healthy. I may only ever love one bird but he sparked a desire to help save all the birds. [age 52]

Joe Trezza

Looking back, I suppose I've always been a birder. I was four or five years old when the signs began to show. Shortly after learning the alphabet, I began filling marble notebooks with lists of animals I'd see on television programs, and I soon found pleasure in studying them until I could recite the species names at will. I was still in preschool when I earned my first trip to the principal's office - not for any behavioral infraction, but because I'd correctly identified every bird in some children's book being read to the class. The teachers were so astonished they called my parents, and paraded me in front of their boss like a prodigy.

I wasn't a prodigy. I was just a birder. In sixth grade, I began attending bird banding sessions at a local nature center, where I was able to hold Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, and Downy Woodpeckers in my hand. That piqued my interest, made helped me realize nature was something I could actually experience, not just watch on TV. But those birds aren't my spark birds.

That summer following the banding sessions, we took a family vacation to Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the national baseball hall of fame. It was designed to kickstart my waning interest in the sport. Yet the most lasting memory wound up being the kettle of Turkey Vultures, maybe one hundred strong, we witnessed soar low overhead one evening as the sun set over Otsego Lake. I watched slack-jawed as they encircled their roost on lopsided six-foot wings, taxying hypnotically like silent jetliners over LaGuardia, carving coordinated cylinders in the clouds before gliding onto some invisible down ramp and disappearing, single file, into the surrounding woods. Collectively, they blotted out the sky. Stunned, spellbound, I was profoundly changed.

The Turkey Vulture isn't a sexy spark bird. They eat carrion and urinate down their own legs. I don't care. I love the Turkey Vulture. It found me at an impressionable age and filled me with curiosity and wonder, opening me up to a world of discovery, enchantment and awe. In the 20 years since, I've seen 731 species of birds, written countless birding articles (including one for the front page of the NY Times) and I recently began writing a book about birding for Penguin Random House. Birding remains the most grounding, engaging and enduring passion in my life. Those vultures lit a spark that is still burning, and shows no sign of going out. [age 12]

Heather Gardner

During the early years of my life, the retired neighbors took care of me while my parents worked. They never had any children, and I just adored them. As my biological grandparents all lived out of town, they quickly became my grandma and grandpa. When I was 6 years old, they moved to Springville. Now instead of seeing them daily, our time together was limited mostly to holidays, birthdays, and my weeklong summer visit. My fondest memories of their home included the daily or sometimes more than once daily stroll to the pond. The stroll to the pond followed the same routine every time. First I checked the window wells along the side of the house for toads. Then we walked past the flower garden, past the vegetable garden with a stop for some fresh peas, past the woods where we'd often find a big snake or two, and finally to the pond. On a cooler day, our journey would continue to the meadow. As we walked around the pond or through the meadow, my grandpa would identify the birds we saw. Whenever I see a red-winged blackbird, I think of him. I can hear him saying, "There's another red-winged blackbird." It is the first bird I can remember identifying as a kid. I also recall before heading back into the house, that we would stop along the side of the house near the clothes line to see if we could catch a glimpse of a hummingbird at the feeder. It was a special moment if we were able to catch one fluttering about. I haven't really done much birding until recently (46 years later). My mother passed away this past winter, and I guess I was feeling a bit nostalgic. I decided to reconnect with some of my fond memories from the past. [age 6]

Maggie Dase

I graduated college in 2021 and stepped into an expanse of unknown possibility. I decided to try to do everything and anything I was interested in. I wanted to dip my toes into every pool. So I started collecting tools, things I needed for whatever project I wanted to work on. At Christmastime, in 2022, I thought I'd ask for some tools I haven't gotten around to buying yet, including a soldering iron and binoculars. 

With the blizzard we had that holiday, we got around to celebrating Christmas Eve a few days late. Just around the corner at my Mom's Dad's. Sure enough, there was the binoculars. My Grandpa was always very supportive of any hobbies his grandchildren wanted to try. They aren't great, but they're simple. It was a start. 

A while later we managed to get to my Mom's Mom's for Christmas, and her husband, Papa, picked me out the most recent edition of the Audubon Eastern Region guide. He saw I had wanted binoculars, so he assumed I needed a good field guide. I've always held deep love for nature, plants, animals, but I never thought much of birds, let alone getting into birding. I figured it would be something I'd get into of I ever got to retire. But that night, that was my start. I curled up in the corner with my grandparents' dog and started reading it: the book I didn't realize I needed in my life.

By spring I would visit my Grandmother and Papa at their farm and we would sit outside. There were different types of birds everywhere. He would point out their songs to me, the colors on their wings, the shapes of their beaks. My grandmother introduced me to the Merlin App. That first day I remember learning that Red-Winged Blackbirds were a thing. And they were everywhere. I still am shocked I never, in 24 years, realized there was a whole species of blackbirds around with just a dash of color. I sort of felt ashamed, but it started me on realizing the little details were what was most interesting part of all of it. 

I began to notice and recognize the Starlings everywhere, the Mourning Dove the nested twice last year in the window above the barbershop next door to where I worked. She came back this year too. I realized as much as my mom wanted to befriend the crows in our neighborhood, we had a different corvid who loved hanging around our yard, a blue jay and its mate. 

It all brought (and continues to bring) such joy to my life. I love to catch a bird in my sights and name it, or even just recognize its differences to the others around it. I recently read this quote that big moments that bring you joy and small moments that do so, really provide the same level of joy. And birding has begun to fill some of my time with such little moments. And as my cousin pointed out when I dragged them to go birding with me for my birthday this year, "it gives you a reason to keep looking up." [age 23]

Teresa Restey

I always enjoyed listening to birds in the morning and especially waking up to the sounds of birds singing with my bedroom windows open since I was in my 30s. When I moved to Lancaster and hung bird feeders in my beautiful park-like backyard with mature trees, woods, fields and a pond behind my house, is when I started taking notice of birds and trying to figure out what kind they were. I don't know that I only had one spark bird, but would say I had a few. The beautiful red cardinals always in my backyard was the initial bird and one of the only birds I could identify at the time. Then I noticed bright yellow birds visiting my bird feeder, which I discovered were goldfinches, and then the little downy woodpeckers that would visit our suet feeder. I love woodpeckers and loved them all. Then Outside Chronicles teamed up with Buffalo Audubon and since I loved hiking so much, I also joined the WNY Birding Challenge several years ago. I started signing up for birding tours led by Tom Kerr. The first birding tour was at Buckhorn to search for Eastern Screech Owls and we (really it was Tom) found them. It was so exciting! Tom's enthusiasm for birding is contagious. I signed up for more birding tours and the winter and spring birding challenges and was hooked. The excitement from finding, identifying and seeing a new bird is like finding the treasure in a treasure hunt. I have learned so much from participating in the birding tours and birding challenges. I love to learn and have a lot more to learn about birds, and now I have a life long hobby to enjoy wherever I go. [age 50]

Jill Favata 

I don't have one particular bird that jumps to mind when I think about what sparked my interest in birding. More of a smattering of memories. My family hiked and traveled a lot when I was a child, and my dad would occassional mention a bird he heard while hiking That planted a seed I'm sure. There's another memory of seeing a wild turkey family and choosing to never eat meat again. Being wowed by a bald eagle flying over on a trip in Oregon. Then as an adult, hiking up Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania and being blown away by how close I was to raptors flying over my head. 

Once I became a mom and my daughter started noticing birds, that's when I got more interested. Someone told me about the Merlin app so we went on a hike and used it, and that's probably my spark moment actually - because I clearly remember being amazed by how many birds were around us. I have always loved to hike and be in nature, but had never realized how many were out there with me. Shortly after that I heard about the WNY Birding Challenge, and I got really in to it. I loved that I was able to combine my love of hiking with photography. I've been hooked ever since. [age 45]

Malcolm Bishop

My spark bird - The black-billed Magpie. My wife & I would go for evening & weekend walks in our neighborhood, we were living in Alberta at the time, and always we would put attention to these noisy squawking birds we would see investigating people's front yards. Over time & more walks we would begin to appreciate running into these mischievous & calculating corvids. I originally identified these birds as a common pest, however they are very interesting & beautiful to watch. I began to appreciate watching when they would glide, revealing their beautiful purplish-blue iridescent feathers. After becoming infatuated with magpie behavior, we also began to notice how they would interact & co-exist with crows & blue jays. We also began to put notice to other birds of our neighborhood, the chickadees, sparrows, nuthatches & the occasional raven. It wasn't until the second spring season living in Buffalo I joined the Buffalo Audubon's Spring Birding Challenge & decided to put a serious effort in identifying as many bird species as I could find in the region. It's been a very fun & rewarding journey, looking forward to participating in next year's Winter Birding Challenge. [age 33]

Joanna Lee

We had our first house, as a family, in Cranbury, NJ. My daughter, who at the time, had to only be around 3, enjoyed looking at birds so we got a bird feeder. It was winter and we would all watch the birds while we had our meals. We had the usual finches and sparrows, but I distinctly remember seeing our first downy woodpecker and being like "wow, that bird is beautiful!! What is it?!" After that, I was hooked! We transformed our yard that spring, planting hundreds of natives and within only a few years, we were living with all the birds. It was absolutely astounding how much a few plants can change an ecosystem. One of my second daughter's first words was adorably, "bird," because they were everywhere. 

Since then, we've moved a few times and are just settling in to our new house in Orchard Park, NY. We have six feeders up and all the plans to transform the yard again. It didn't take long for the downys to visit, and I still get a little spark of nostalgia every time I see them. [age 33]

Alli P.

My interest in birds started when I was a child growing up in Australia. My dad would put birdseed outside on a bench for the native birds around our farm. Mostly I remember it attracting a gorgeous red and blue bird called a Mountain Lorrie (or Lorikeet). However, even though my appreciation of birds started young, I didn't really get into birding heavily until thirty years later, now living in Upstate New York and participating in the WNY Hiking Challenge. I love hiking and being out in the woods and nature and have seen so many birds. When Outside Chronicles introduced the Birding Challenge I jumped right into it, and have learned so much more about the native birds of this area and now I listen and look for birds wherever I go! Thanks Mike.  [age 5]

Ferol Carytsas, in memory of John Carytsas

My father always had a love for nature. I'm unsure when or what inspired him to become a bird watcher. He would participate in our local annual bird counts and always come home excited about the number of birds they saw. He almost ran our car off the road when he saw a swallowtail kite for the first time! As a preteen, my dad would take me birdwatching (I hated it at the time; it was SO boring!). However, those memories are some of my favorites--quietly walking through the woods with binoculars around our necks. I don't know what his spark bird was, but I'm so grateful that he instilled in me a love of birds and birdwatching. Over the years, I've had many spark birds--purple gallinules, red-headed woodpeckers, pileated woodpeckers, swallowtail kites, screech owls, cardinals, sandhill cranes, etc.!  [age 5]

Marcia OBara

The camping trip to Algonquin Park in Ontario was just what I needed in July 1984. I was slowly recovering after a motor vehicle accident that left me walking slowly and healing at about the same speed. We decided to head to Algonquin for an abbreviated version of our usual two week canoe trip.

The park was beautiful, and we found a really nice campsite at one of the organized campgrounds in the park. My husband and son took off and hiked and explored the area while I hung out near our campsite, just looking at all the birds. I wasn't a birder then, so I only knew a few birds by sight.

High in the trees I started to notice a persistent song, repetitive and rather loud. I had a pair of low power binoculars and scanned the trees to see if I could discover the bird that was singing. As the day and evening wore on the singing continued and persisted all night.

When I woke the next morning I started asking my husband if he could find that annoying singer, but he was of no help. I then became rather obsessed with the bird, which seemed to be singing from the top of multiple trees. Finally, we headed to the visitor's center so I could ask a ranger for help.

I described the nearly constant song from high up in those trees to the Ranger and he told me he knew what the bird was, and then he said "but I think you should try to figure it out yourself." He lent me a Golden Guide and gave me one piece of advice "look up, at the top of the trees, not near the ground". He also told me to look at the pages of vireos in the field guide.

Back to my campsite I went, with my bird guide in hand. I studied the vireo photos and prepared to identify my first bird in the wild. Two days later my big break came as I finally detected bird movement high in the trees, moving slowly down the branches closer to me.

Big bill - check.
Black line on face - check.
Red eye - check.
Black cap on head - check.
Bill open and singing that constant song - check.
Red - eyed vireo it was. My very first bird identification, all by myself.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this would be the start of a life-long quest for birds. All because of a persistent Red-eyed vireo. [age 32]

Tom Kerr

In the summer between 8th and 9th grade I was sitting on my front porch at sunset. There were some larger than usual birds flying up and down my street catching bugs near the street lights. I can't remember exactly how many there were, but it seemed unusual to me. I went inside and found my grandpa's Field Guide to Birds of North America and started flipping through it. My grandpa had passed away the year before after a lengthy illness, and my Grandma passed away earlier that summer after a battle with cancer. A lot of their things were in our house while my dad worked on settling their estate. 

I noticed white spots on the wings of the birds on my street and matched them with Common Nighthawk. This was the first time I used a field guide to look up a bird in my neighborhood. It was another 10 years before I really got into bird watching. Nighthawks still remind me of my grandpa and his Golden Guide to Birds of North America. I don't think I'll ever see Nighthawks like that again, but it's still a great memory I have of the first time I used a field guide. I've heard so many people say "I wish I started birding sooner," and I think about how great it would be to talk to my grandpa about birds. [age 13]

Jessica K. Schnell

The summer before 7th grade, my family moved to a new house with a backyard. I had found a book at the local recycling center, "Hand-Taming Wild Birds at the Feeder" by Alfred G. Martin. I was able to hand tame the black-capped chickadees that came to our backyard feeder, and this was my spark bird and first love. After that, I learned the other local residents -- Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, the bully Blue Jay, Downy Woodpecker, Dark-eyed Junco, Gray Catbird, Wood Thrush, Mourning Dove, etc. I connected my family with birds when the American Robin laid eggs in our front yard window, and when an American Goldfinch flew into our garage and I had to free it from some chickenwire it got tangled in. Because of my bird knowledge, I was able to join my high school Science Olympiad team, and then study Ornithology in my undergraduate and graduate programs. My PhD was focused on modeling conservation of bird habitat, and the rest is history! [age 12]

Tom Riley

My spark bird was the evening grosbeak, growing up in the Adirondacks I would sit on the porch of my grandparents home and watch them come to the feeders. My grandparents were birders and I would go on hikes with them to watch birds. [age 8]

Matt

In 2020, in the midst of a new global pandemic, like most others, I was cooped up in my house, isolating. We had cancelled our vacation plans for the year and I was looking for something to keep me occupied around the house. Enjoying photography as a hobby, I started taking pictures of birds and quickly realized how enjoyable and challenging it was. That spring, I purchased a bird feeder and a couple of birdhouses to see if I could lure more photography targets. Later that spring, I started to occasionally hear a unique chattering call in the backyard. After a few more days, I observed a pair of house wrens busily gathering materials and building a nest in my newly-acquired birdhouse. I spent the next few weeks watching them complete the nest and then care for their young and instantly got hooked into the world of birding. [age 37]

Maddie

We were hiking at this area near the woods and we had our own bird app on our phones so whenever a bird sung a sound it would pick it up and tell us which bird it was. We saw so many birds and it was so fun using our moms binoculars. [age 8]

Anonymous

Since I can remember I always had a fascination with birds and bird watching but never really took it much past just watching birds. I've always had bird feeders but pretty much just put them out in the fall and bring them in in the spring. The spark for birdwatching came when we lived across the road from Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. I took my kids out for a bike ride one spring day down Sour Springs Road. We had stopped so the kids could burn off some energy when I spotted the most brilliant blue bird I had ever seen. It was sitting in a jumble of vines 10 feet from me. I got a good look at it and I couldn't wait to get home to look in my bird feeder book to see if this bird was listed.

When I looked this bird up I found out that it was an Indigo Bunting. I was very pleased to have spotted it and my interest in bird watching took off. Having since moved to Allegany County and finding the I Bird Ny challenge my interest in bird watching is at an all time high. [age 35]

Wendy

I will always remember my grandparents had a owl in the rafters of there garage. All of us kids were terrified of it. He was stuffed and never moved but in are minds he did. I always wanted to learn more about it. As the years have gone by my love of photography has brought me back to my passion to learn about the owls. I have gone on many birding trips and enjoy finding and learning about all these new species. I also like to adventure out to new places. [age 6]

Tracy

Birds have always been a part of my life. I grew up in a home where bird feeders were out. My Mother has always loved feeding the birds. As she spent time with my son she has taught him so much about birds. 

My Mother is now 88 and still loves her birds. When I go visit we sit and talk about what she sees. She will get out bird book which likely older than me. She is quite isolated now but this has given us a deeper connection. I have also become far more interested than I ever was. Interested enough to join local birding challenges and discover how much I don't know and need to learn. [age 58]

AJ Martha

I started getting into birding by playing the board game Wingspan with a group of friends. I had never given birds much thought or a second glance, but the artwork was beautiful and the fun facts piqued my interest even more. I started noticing birds more when I was out on walks or in nature and then it became kind of a fun scavenger hunt to hear different songs and take a closer look at my surroundings. I was referred to use Merlin from a friend of mine and that made tracking and finding different birds so much easier and accessible. This all culminated to participating in this years 2024 WNY Birding Challenge to prompt me and my partner to go out more and explore the world around us, while using a shared fondness of birds to facilitate our expeditions. [age 28]

Patrick Omilian

Birding. For me, I don't recall exactly when it began but I know where. My backyard as a kid, the suburbs. It started simple. Dad put up a feeder. Nothing fancy. And so it began. Dad and I watching birds, feeding birds, identifying birds. I was hooked; still am. 

Later on after high school I dabbled in ornithological studies. As a Natural Resources major at Cornell I had the honor of taking classes at the Cornell Ornithology Lab and studying birds in Sapsucker Woods, the Arnot Forest, and all around Ithaca. During long walks from my dorm, I heard, then saw, my first Pileated Woodpecker - what a magnificent bird!!

Fast-forward a couple or so decades and now I have my own yard with my own birdfeeders and my own son with whom I watch birds, feed birds, and identify birds. Still with my dad too, and now my wife and father-in-law. I'm still hooked (even more-so) and I'm pretty sure my son now is too. [age 7]

Anonymous

I mentioned to my neighbor that I was looking for an activity to do with my grade school daughter. He advised to cross the street, climb the hill, find the marsh, and stand still. We were in a warbler cloud! Incredible, so many splashes of color. Every way we twisted our necks, another warbler. The most amazing was a Cerulean Warbler. We were hooked. Started with old, beat up binoculars. Advanced to excellent binoculars. Eventually a scope. An opportunity any day to get outside and bird. Everywhere we travel - more birds. Our neighbor? Steve Kress. [age 38]

Tuck

In 1993, on my birthday in March, a Ring-necked Pheasant was running around my yard. I have no idea where it came from. I had to figure out what that strange thing was and grabbed an old Peterson's guide my Dad had picked up at a garage sale. Later that year, my 3-year old daughter and I were having a picnic on the ground when a beautiful, yellow-shafted Flicker landed 2 feet away on the fence. I had no idea such a crazy looking, gorgeous bird could be real. Dots, stripes, a killer bill, red, yellow, black and white, and he looked us right in the eye. I had to grab that guide again and did a lot of page-flipping til I figured it out. Then came more guides, and walks at Tifft, and 31 years later I still can't get enough of birds. [age 28]

Mike Spencer

I don't have a spark bird or one particular memory that I think back on regularly. I got into birding sort of gradually, primarily through gardening, but what finally hooked me was Project Feederwatch. When I started participating, I really only knew a handful of backyard birds so recording the birds that came to my feeder required me to pay attention, observe closely, and identify each bird through Merlin or a field guide. This became a fun family activity and every new species was exciting. I still remember the first time I looked out my kitchen window and saw my first White-crowned Sparrow, my first Rose-breasted Grosbeak, my first Brown Thrasher. Later, I started paying attention to the birds I'd see while walking, hiking, or doing just about anything. I've since started participating group birding events, which I find to be particularly rewarding, informative, and fun, but I still get a thrill observing birds at home and get particularly excited I see an interesting bird and when the spring migrants return. [age 37]

Steph Foraker

The experience that sparked my interest in paying attention to birds was a pair of peregrine falcons that nested atop my workplace in Chicago. I would watch for them regularly, sometimes seeing them swoop past my office window. I felt a connection to them somehow. I'm not sure why they captured my imagination, but reflecting back, I love their speed, agility, power, and adaptability to just make it work in a city. I have kept one of their feathers that I found on the building steps. I bought my first bird guide because of them. Since then, I have had some other meaningful, magical moments with 'birds of prey' - red-tailed hawk, bald eagle, and other peregrines. Just me, alone, in their presence, thrilled, in awe, humbled. [age 40]

Michelle Hatch

My spark bird story begins with my mom and the WNY birding challenge and being able to do an outdoor activity like that with her. Which grew into my feeble chase of the Scarlet Tanager. Basically her and I would go out and look for birds together and I then realized how much better it makes my hiking experience as well. To listen, see & identify the birds. I have learned so much about birds that I never expected to know along with identification via sight and sound. Now it has become an adventure to the point of looking for specific species and driving to locate them; getting really excited when we see / hear a new one. Lastly my experience with that Scarlet Tanager... it was on the challenge to find and take a picture of it. Well, I would walk trail after trail and hear it but never see it; until one day when I was finally able to catch a glimpse and a photo. I was ecstatic and most definitely hooked after that. (I also tell everyone about the Scarlet Tanager) [age 43]

Rebecca Stefoff

Four decades ago I was idly strolling along a trail through a wooded area outside Yardley, Pennsylvania, when a bird flew across my path. It was so startlingly new and strange to me that it seemed to have flown out of of a fairy tale: severe black and white but bearing a deep, beautiful pinkish-red patch on its breast like a heraldic sigil. This magical creature perched on a branch ahead of me as if beckoning me on. I walked slowly forward, it flew ahead, I followed it (as one does when a guide appears in a fairy tale), it flew ahead again, and on and on several times until I finally lost sight of it in the trees. But I had to know what it was, and so, in this dark age before the internet, I went to a bookstore the next day and bought my first bird guide--and that got me interested in seeing what other bird species I could find and identify. I never saw a Rose-breasted Grosbeak in those woods again, but I was lucky enough to see several others before I moved to the West Coast. I love the Black-headed Grosbeaks I see from time to time in Oregon, but I hope to see a Rose-breasted Grosbeak again some day. [age 32]

Kassia

In September of 2019, I won a travel voucher to go anywhere in the world. I planned my trip and bought a good camera and was all set to go. Then March 2020 hit and everything stopped. I did a couple of WNY hiking challenges , the Tupper Lake Triad and then the tendon in my foot was like enough of that. So while wearing a boot , relaxing and rehabbing my ankle I saw the Birding Challenge. My first thought was I can learn how to use my camera for my rescheduled trip. I really started to get more into the challenge when I started to find and see birds I never knew migrated here. After I put my bird feeders up, I've had the chance to see a couple new visitors each migration. Last year finally got to take my trip to Japan and got the chance to see a bunch of new birds and cormorants that the fishermen use daily. [age 41]

Anonymous

My home has a creek and open fields in the back. Over the 30 years living here I have gotten to see many different birds all year long. I enjoy them all but love to see the Baltimore Orioles come in the spring and raise their young into the summer. [age 35]

Kristin K

My grandparents lived in Michigan's upper peninsula on tje St. Marys River. I would spend several weeks each summer with them when I was a kid. They were especially fascinated with hummingbirds. They had a feeder on their front porch that had a steady stream of hummingbirds everyday. The feeder had to be refilled almost daily. When my grandma was refilling it, the hummingbirds would dive bomb her as if to say hurry up. I loved watching her do that. She would tell them hang on, hold your horses, etc. I haven't become a true birder but my interest is growing as I get older. I have had my own feeder the last several years. Whenever I see the birds at the feeder, I always think of my grandma. [age 10]

Bayla Arietta

In the Fall of 2020, I began collecting migratory bird data and specimens for the Yale Peabody Museum ornithology collections, along with Evolutionary Ecologist Andis Arietta and the Yale Law School Executive Director of the Law, Ethics & Animals Program, Viveca Morris. The goal of this project is to gather data about bird mortality due to collisions, to identify buildings that are killing birds frequently, and to use this data to advocate for mitigation action to prevent future deaths. At the Yale School of Management alone, a 225,000-square-foot almost entirely glass building, more than 250 dead birds of over 50 species were found in just two years. It is estimated that over one billion birds in the U.S. die each year due to collisions with windows, but many cities are starting to require that new buildings follow bird-safe design. The City of New Haven is in fact now considering bird-friendly design legislation efforts thanks to the data we collected.

Simultaneously, I was making paintings inspired by the window strikes, and won a Yale Law Ethics & Animal Program Grant to organize and curate an art exhibition highlighting avian window strike fatalities. Fractured Aviary opened to the public on June 30th 2022 at Antler and Talon Galleries in Portland Oregon, and featured the work of over 60 nationally recognized artists, sculptors, and ethical taxidermists (working with birds that died from window strikes or other natural causes) from all over the world. The goal was to force viewers to reexamine the impact of their offices, homes, and cities. Ultimately, we hope folks contribute to the movement pushing for cities to adopt bird-friendly building ordinances and for businesses to adopt bird-friendly architecture. 

Some of the artists in the show requested that the proceeds from their sold works be donated to the cause, and we identified the American Bird Conservancy's Glass Collisions Campaign, which is led by Dr. Christine Sheppard, as a good place for donations to go. This campaign has historically been very creative and effective in moving the ball forward to try to mitigate collisions in several ways - getting a LEED building point added for bird safety, working with cities to develop the first bird-safe building ordinances, working with manufacturers to develop new products, working with scientists to develop methods to test its effectiveness, presenting on bird friendly design to architectural firms, and more.

Many visitors shared that they had heard about the exhibition and came to the gallery specifically to see it. We assume this is due to a combination of press via Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, Supersonic Art, and Cornell Lab's All About Birds. We are thankful to all three for featuring the exhibit in their online publications. Additional promotion was also done by the gallery, myself (Bayla Arietta), and the individual artists included in the show via social media and newsletters. One visitor was so inspired by our exhibit, that she contacted Mayor Todd Gloria in her hometown of San Diego, along with 12 other cities in San Diego County to preach the necessity of building ordinances that protect native bird species. We are thrilled to see that people are learning about this issue we aimed to shed light on and are inspired to act.

Window strike fatalities are completely preventable through sensible architectural designs or retrofitting effective and affordable solutions such as netting, window decals, bird-safe window films, or markers. The exhibit was successful in bringing attention and awareness to the problem, solutions, and the changes that must be made to protect bird species. We are confident that our message was brought to the public and inspired many to take action while also raising a donation for the American Bird Conservancy's Glass Collisions Campaign. We hope more work from the show will be sold from the gallery's online shop and people will continue to be inspired to call their state representatives and demand change.

https://www.antlerpdx.com/collections/fractured-aviary 

https://baylaart.com/Window-Strike-Yellow-Warbler 

https://baylaart.com/Window-Strike-Northern-Cardinal 

https://baylaart.com/White-Breasted-Nuthatch-Northern-Parula-and-Blackpoll-Warbler-Window [age 32]

C A Taylor

My Mom and Dad taught me about birds when I was knee high to a chicken. Since then I've shared my knowledge and enthusiasm with many others. Currently I have " sparked" my two walking buddies.... And I am also encouraging my brother-in-law. (Being married to my sister, who was also inspired by our Dad, he is getting sparked from two sides.)

I've got my husband looking thru binoculars and even my mother-in-law ( 99 years of age) watches for hummingbirds out the window. Myself, I get sparked every day.... Anything with feathers.... [age 5]

Traci

This is not the prettiest tale, but it's my Spark Bird moment, nonetheless. About 20 or so years ago, my husband (my fiancee at that time) and I were driving around the Syracuse, NY area and stopped to get gas. My husband got out to pump. Back then, as there were really no smart phones like there are today, being left behind in the car while someone pumped gas was a fairly dull experience. Suddenly, I noticed a house sparrow quickly land on the ground just outside the car window. It had a cream-colored moth or butterfly under its feet. In what seemed like only 2 seconds, it held the moth with one foot while it tore off one of its wings, then the other, as if the wings were some kind of annoying packaging around a piece of candy. It then took the torso into its mouth and flew away. I remember staring at these two little mothless wings on the ground, my eyes wide and mouth agape. What just happened? Did I really just see that? I excitedly tried to tell my fiancee what happened, but the wings had started to blow away by then, and the story just didn't have the same effect afterward as it did in the moment. Truth be told, I have always loved all animals, and that wasn't my first experience up close with birds - after all, my grandmother used to throw peanuts out her pantry window to feed awaiting blue jays in my youth. However, this particular experience caused me to see birds in a way that made me start to research, feed, and enjoy birds at a very different level for the rest of my life. I now go on regular birds walks and have, on average, about 10-15 bird feeders in my yard, targeted to different species. [age 27]

Matt Kauffman

My spark bird is the American Bittern. My grandpa had a blind in the wetland behind his home where he filmed many birds with an 8mm video camera. I remember watching footage of the bittern (or "thunder-pump" as grandpa called them) making it's very unique vocalizations and then the next spring, on a canoe trip with my dad and sister to the Cedar River Flow in the Adirondacks, we saw and heard the bittern making it's vocalizations! It was experiences like this, spending time in the woods with my grandpa and on those spring ADK canoe trips with my dad that made me want to become a naturalist and learn about all the creatures that we share this planet with. It has been my affection for birds and birding in particular that has become the thing connecting me most to the natural communities I'm surrounded by. [age 11]

Kelly Sulima

My son and I used to be an outdoor family. We loved to camp, hike, and were actively involved in Scouts. However, when I turned 40, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing surgeries and radiation treatments, I no longer had the same energy or strength to keep up with my son's outdoor activities. Being outside was therapeutic for both of us, so we started taking short, slow walks around the many small parks on Long Island. During our walks, we began noticing different types of ducks and songbirds. One day, while standing by a local pond, we saw a large blue bird with a long beak. A kind gentleman taking pictures told us it was a Great Blue Heron and recommended a few apps that could help us identify all the birds we saw on our walks. After a few months, I bought a camera and started taking pictures of all the birds we found. Through the years, I have met many wonderful people who share my love for birding. Even now, 10 years after being declared cancer-free, I still enjoy spotting new birds and meeting other wildlife photographers and birders. It's still my therapy. [age 40]

Denise A.

I've been involved in animal welfare for many years, however, it wasn't until a fresh snowfall a couple of years ago that I felt compelled to learn about our feathered friends. Upon inspection of my backyard I noticed a large group of curious black and white birds shuffling around the yard and my back porch. I was enamored with the small dark-eyed Juncos that visited my home each day. From there I slowly began putting out feeders, planting native plants in the spring, and learning about the birds that visited my yard. I now spend each weekend, field guide and camera in hand, visiting various locations in the Adirondacks, Central New York, and Western New York in an effort to learn more and ethically photograph native birds. I always look forward to the return of my dark-eyes Junco friends as the weather turns cold. [age 35]

Doug Batt

In the spring or summer of 1979 (I think - or 1980?), I was a graduate student studying chemistry at Cornell University. A post-doctoral fellow had recently joined the research group in which I was working, and had a desk and bench in the same lab as I did. One day, at lunch time, she asked me if I'd like to join her for a walk around nearby Beebe Lake. She said she thought she had seen some rough-winged swallows flying over the lake and wanted to check them out. At the time, while I enjoyed nature and the outdoors, I was much more interested in wildflower photography than birds (and knew almost nothing about the latter, or even that such a thing as a "rough-winged swallow" existed). But it was a nice day, and a good excuse to get out of the lab, so I agreed. I honestly don't remember if we actually saw rough-winged swallows, but my companion did point out a number of birds that we saw, and identified a number of calls and songs. This was intriguing, and something that I thought merited further attention. She also told me about the existence of the Lab of Ornithology at Sapsucker Woods (about which I was also ignorant). Subsequent visits there led to further interest, and eventually my wife and I joined the lab, took a birding course offered there which included numerous field trips led by experienced birders. So was born a hobby (and sometimes an obsession) which has lasted 50 years. [age 25]

Colby Baker

I think I started to become engaged with birding when I was very young. I could identify bird calls by age six and an elderly neighbor heard me describing the bird calls to my mom. She and I became friends over the years and have been exchanging photos and sitings for the last 15 years. For the last 4 years I have become very involved in learning more about birds and have gotten very involved in photographing them. I also had the opportunity to self publish some birding guides for Central Park and NYC. I love to travel, have become very involved in studying the environment, and subsequently recently completed a degree in wildlife science.  [age 6]

Teresa Corrigan

I met two spark birds in 1996, in Ithaca, New York. It was a time of many new beginnings. 

After going back to school to change careers, and substitute teaching for 18 months, I finally had my own class. My husband and I and our two children loved to hike near our Buffalo home and in the Adirondacks. We loved learning anything we could about the natural world, and I was eager to share all of that with my students. So, I headed to Ithaca for a weekend Project Wild facilitator training at Cayuga Nature Center. It was a nature lovers paradise: teachers from all over New York State who were excited to learn as much as they could and share it with their students, and Department of Environmental Conservation educators who were knowledgeable, enthusiastic and great teachers. 

We spent hours and hours outdoors hiking, learning about wildflowers and forest ecology, and learning games and activities to teach and inspire out students. At night there were more sessions, and lessons about New York State mammals. A bunch of us stayed up late watching a video about black bears in New York State. I was engrossed in it all, and ready to try any activity the educators presented.

The next morning, I got up for a six AM bird walk. (I was not a morning person at that time, but there was coffee). I had no idea what a bird walk was. I thought we would hike briskly, and maybe stop occasionally for a second to look at or listen to a bird. I had no idea how to use binoculars. Now the "walk" was underway, but I noticed we were standing around a lot. It was cold, we were moving in slow motion on a wet field, and my hiking boots were leaky. I started to think about sneaking back inside and getting more coffee. One of the educators quickly re-engaged me. He gave me a pair of binoculars, and in seconds taught me how to use them and "put me on" my very first bird. It was An Eastern Towhee, then called Rufous sided. I had never seen anything like it. My eyes gobbled up all the details I would have missed without binoculars-the birds black head and wings, the specks of white on those wings, and that Rufous side. Then in another moment, I was "on" a yellow warbler. I still gasp at the first of year glimpse of one, the bright yellow feathers, the big black eyes, the red streaks on the male's chest. That moment, that first moment, I'm sure I made quite the racket. I was gob smacked.

From that moment on, birds were no longer an incidental part of being out in nature, but an essential part. Almost every peak we have climbed, or camping trip we have enjoyed comes complete with a bird story. Thank you, Eastern Towhee, and Yellow Warbler. You are still my spark birds. [age 38]

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]

• As a kid we would take rides every fall to watch the Canada Geese.  It was a tradition we had with my parents and grandparents.  We would pack a picnic and make a daylong event out of it.  So many memories originate with those rides.  I was interested in the geese simply because of the number of them, but I had no idea what else was flying around.  Makes me wonder how many other birds I could have seen had I been paying attention.  Every year when I hear the first large group of geese flying over, I still call my mom and tell her that I had heard them. [age 8]

• I would go every year fishing on the opening day of trout with my stepdad, a tradition I keep going today with my son even now that Dad is gone. We were driving from the one fishing area, and I saw a huge bird in the water through the trees.  I slammed on the brakes and put it in reverse on a pretty winding part of the road. I felt it was worth the risk.  I was right.  It was standing on a small island in middle of the river tearing a fish apart.   He clearly had better luck fishing than we had.  It was the first Bald Eagle I had seen in the wild. [age 30]

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]

• I went to a Sandhill Crane festival in Steamboat Springs. It was crowded and birding groups were up to 90 people so we didn't see much, so I was a bit discouraged about the event. During lunch, I took my sack and went out back of the Community Center to sit by the Yampa River and eat my sandwich. All of a sudden next to me was this non-descript bird diving into the water. I was amazed and asked myself, "What is this bird?" I was so impressed, delighted by my being able to witness this bird's skill. I later found out that it was an American Dipper. It wasn't until a 2nd encounter a few years later that I had the bird sing. It is still one of my favorites. [age 66]

• I was visiting a friend in Cathedral City/Palm Springs last march and decided to bring along my binoculars. On our way to a Bocce game, we walked through the complex and I heard a beautiful bird song, but could not see the bird. I asked everyone around what bird was singing and no one knew. Later I used my Merlin app to identify the bird and it was a Northern Mockingbird! [age 71]

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]