It’s a tough lesson to learn that there’s always somebody better at something than you are.
In college, you’re the best wrestler in your weight class and then a guy who’s built like pit bull throws you down so hard your kneecap breaks. The guy was a clear warning against smugness in any field.
I figure I know a little about birds. I always had a good memory for their names, locales and habits. The other day when a friend told me that he and his wife were heading from Chicago to Florida for a beach vacation, I suggested he amuse himself there by birdwatching, an activity he’s not particularly interested in.
With sincere if dimwitted excitement I told him he’d see Willets, Sanderlings and maybe my favorite Ruddy Turnstones on the beach, and Brown Pelicans over the sea as well as Frigate Birds or Man O’Wars, and he looked askance.
I realized I was speaking what is essentially a foreign language although I hadn’t meant to be a wiseass. I apologize to my friend, here and now. Although he does the same kind of thing by speaking Spanish to strangers in restaurants because he’s fluent in it, having spent some good years in El Paso.
All that aside, as much of a bird guru as I might seem to my bilingual pal, I’m a lightweight compared to the birders I’ve discovered on websites like IBET and Illinois Birders’ Forum. They’re better than I am. They know more, go more places, see more and report meaningful stuff. They’re the pit bull wrestler who made mincemeat out of me. It’s humbling.
But it doesn’t change anything. I learned long ago that whatever you do, somebody does it better. I don’t mind. I check these websites and enjoy vicarious kicks when I read about the Purple Sandpipers, European Goldfinches and Whooping Cranes (with photos to prove it) that they pull out of a deep hat. Meanwhile, I do the best birding in my weight class. And I write about it.
I was introduced to birddorking by a hunting buddy here in TX, and trying to get decent photos of birds with a digital superzoom mirrors the experience of a hunt only without the kill. I have no interest in discussing moral, political, or ecological issues anyone may have with hunting, but I have always taken pride in the heritage of environmental stewardship that ethical hunters enjoy.
I say all that to say this, my buddy gave me an entirely new arena in which to explore my love for the outdoors. While I may never catch up with his near-encyclopedic knowledge of the resident and migrant birds of this and several other areas of North America, my instincts have put me in the right place at the right time to take some amazing photos of which he is irrefutably jealous. I know that, if I study or practice for 10,000 hours (thanks, Malcolm Gladwell), I will be better at whatever I’m working on than 90-99% of the population. I also know that, like Yvon Chouinard, I’ll probably be lured away by some other pursuit at about the time that I’ve reached 80% mastery. It’s a big, wide world out there, and the best thing about birding is that it gets you out exploring.