I walked outside on a recent bright Thursday afternoon; cumulus clouds were stitched on the fabric of a blue sky. Rock pigeons had settled onto a wire that stretched above the houses, and in the pine trees along my path, other birds chittered. Then, I heard another bird call, and I looked up to locate it. I stood with my palm shielding my eyes as I searched for the bird making the cry. I had a moment of amusement as I remembered a humorous post that years ago, I had placed on my social media page, about my neighbors being wary of the black man with the binoculars stalking the neighborhood. But on this day, though I had no binoculars, I sighted the bird, and because of the sound clip that my eldest child had sent me, I knew that the cries were from two Red-Shouldered Hawks.
The TV show CBS Sunday Morning did a feature which aired in Indianapolis on March 24th, about a man who had been accused of threatening a woman while bird watching in New York City’s Central Park. Christian Cooper was in the park when he encountered the woman and her dog. The dog was not on a leash, a violation of the rules of the park, and when Cooper asked the woman to leash her dog, she refused. Cooper then offered a treat to her dog, and the woman called the police, saying that an “African American man … is threatening myself and my dog.” Cooper recorded the woman as she made the false 911 call; neither Cooper nor the woman were in the park by the time officers responded.
I remember wandering through Central Park years ago, when I was in New York City on a photo shoot for L.S. Ayres. As I meandered along, I heard a drumming sound, and glanced up to see a woodpecker pounding against a tree. I was not a birder then, but I know now that the bird I saw that day was a Pileated Woodpecker. I saw “Woody Woodpecker” recently, a rare sight in an urban environment. He was cackling as he passed over my head, and he landed on a telephone pole, and went to work.
One of the other offerings of that CBS Sunday Morning program was a conversation with Steve Martin about his documentary, and the movies he has appeared in. The producers of the show did not tie the story of Christian Cooper birding in Central Park to the Steve Martin segment, but I did. Steve Martin was one of the characters in the movie “The Big Year,” the story of three people who were competing to see who could record the most sightings of birds in one year. The movie was based on the book of the same name, by Mark Obmascik. From January 1st to December 31st, some birding enthusiasts will embark on a “big year,” and when I learned of the book while listening to a National Public Radio program, I bought it for a friend. After reading it, I bought a copy for myself. When the movie came out, I watched it with my friend, who was already dying from pancreatic cancer. He was the one who first got me interested in bird watching, and we had our own contest to see the most birds. He beat me handily, though he was in awe of my having seen a bald eagle flying between the high-rise buildings in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.
My granddaughters watch birds with me; every year is for the birds, and a big year.
cjon3acd@att.net