When you’re out in the deep woods, you might focus on a woodpecker, and discover there’s a porcupine on the next branch.
Or you look at vultures picking at something in a clearing, and notice that a coyote is looking back at you from the tree line.
It’s good to get out where the birds are. More than good. It’s wild.
While birding, you might see muskrat, beaver, mink, snapping turtles, alligators. You’ll come across deer, a sure thing.
Could be you’ll see snakes, moose, elk, fox, antelope, javelinas, armadillos, wild sheep, maybe a bear.
You might spot a Pine Marten, if you’re lucky.
Marten sounds like a bird’s name. When you talk about it later, people think you’re talking about a Purple Martin, something like that.
But it’s no bird. It’s a predatory mammal, all fur, teeth and claws. It hunts in trees, and is rarely seen.
“Pine Marten” is also the name of a fiction piece in our Stories section.
Well, we call it fiction. But, like everything mentioned here, it comes from real life.
It’s good to get out where the birds are. Amen to that.
Birding does give you surprises by providing you with chance encounters of different wildlife. I was birding once and came upon a juvenile bobcat [and his mom] and got the best shots of my lifetime [so far]. And I was just birding. Thank you birds!
Very cool. I’ve never seen one.