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PD in a Pd: Birding with Parkinson’s in a Pandemic

Social distancing. Shelter-in-place. Self-quarantine. Travel restrictions.

These are terms that are generally antithetical to birders in general, birders of advanced age in particular, and PD birders acutely. To add insult to injury, “COVID-19” sounds like a murder of crows is beating down your door which, come to think of it, is kind of accurate.  Except they’re really tiny crows, and they are trying to get into your lungs, and there’s way more than 19 of them.

If you’re lucky you have well-stocked feeders placed in a welcoming environment conducive to attracting a variety of species, because other options for PD birders are not promising.  With schools closed families have taken over the trails, and little elementary-aged human disease vectors are running amok, totally ignoring “social distancing” guidelines.  Since they’re not accustomed to unprogrammed outdoor activities, these groups of “hikers” are particularly drawn to the flattest, most easily accessible paths—the same ones that mobility-challenged people can best manage. And that’s in the parks and reserves that aren’t closed already. 

Our hope for public health is to “flatten the curve” so that beleaguered ICUs can keep up with the influx of acute patients, but for birders that poses a dilemma: success in squishing the peak down necessarily entails lengthening the duration of the outbreak. While that is undoubtedly necessary, the restrictions on and closures of prime stopover habitat will almost certainly continue through spring migration and most likely through breeding season.  It’s going to be a silent spring, unless you’re blessed with an Edenic backyard and a comfortable spot to sit in it.  Time to build a bird blind?

Other possibilities for birding (PD or otherwise) in the pandemic:

  • Time to order those “Birds of…” guides for destinations you’ve been drooling over—not that you’ll be able to visit them anytime soon.
  • Time to actually read and maybe even study the family-specific books you bought last year (or the year before, or the year before…)
  • Time to enter some of your ancient field notebooks into eBird (ugly ‘x’s everywhere: did we not do counts then, only mark an occurrence?)
  • Time to visit somewhere else’s livestreamed feeder cam or photogenic raptor-nest-cam
  • Time to cultivate “sympathy optics” in your significant other.
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The Inner Desperation of the Checklist Streak

It finally happened—I’ve taken up streaking.  No, no, not the kind that would get my wrinkled old 50+ body thrown in jail, but checklist streaking: recording at least one bird checklist every day. Which means, among other things, birding each day. It’s an obsession, albeit a mostly benign and low-impact one, that started accidentally around Thanksgiving.  Maybe it was the tryptophan, maybe the general stress of the holidays, or maybe just how the shortening of the daylight hours subliminally foretold the waning of my years. Regardless of how it started, it’s taken on a life of its own now, this streaking.  Luckily it seems benign, even potentially beneficial.  Because I am streaking:

  • I am forced outside daily to breathe fresh air;
  • I carve out at least fifteen minutes birding every day, and among other things that pause helps reset my attitude when needed;
  • I have to actively plan to go birding, which leads to planning other goals and activities as well;
  • I feel more disciplined (it’s unclear if this is a reflection or a reinforcement of the discipline I have been forced into by PD–pill regimens, biking, boxing, etc.);
  • I can escape if I want—while I am birding I don’t have to talk, I don’t have to be self-conscious about tremoring or shuffling, I don’t have to interact with others at all if I like; and
  • I often must survey suboptimal habitat, and as a result I appreciate even the very common bird species.

Of course, as with any borderline obsessive behavior, there are some stresses associated with it: When will I have time to bird today? Did I remember my binoculars? Will my coworkers (weekdays) / family (weekends) think I am nuts? Will I get enough species so I don’t have to explain a low count to eBird? Will this rain ever stop?

How long will I be able to keep the streak going?

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GBBC 2020

I am literally drooling my way through another Great Backyard Bird Count and am actually counting the birds in my backyard, unlike the myriad birders I imagine have trekked to their favorite bird-saturated daybreak spots  to secure more birds in five minutes of dawn chorus than I’ll see all day. Oh, and they’ve staked out two or three owl species calling to round out their eBird GBBC submission. You can’t make this up (or can you?): the first bird seen in the count was a New Zealand owl called a “Morepork,” and you know someone went looking for that bird. Either that or it’s fake news.

Your humble Birder with Parkinson’s gets no parade of passerines, no nighttime strigidean ululations–you’d think the minor peripheral hallucinations of my dopamine agonist ought to be twisted enough to at least conjure up a random semiconscious “Who cooks for you?” Barred Owl call when I get up to urinate at four-thirty a.m. …I’m still waiting for that, though (the owl, not the pee). I have to make do with what familiar little fluffpops I can bribe with black oil to the feeders, or the random silhouettes that I accidentally (incidentally) see while very stiffly walking the dog. In either case that’s not a high number, I assure you. For birders with PD, “crippling fallouts” have upsetting alternate connotations. Looking up into the treetops is hard, too– my back is killing me with spasms that my movement disorder specialist insists are non-Parkinsonian, even though she admits forcing binoculars into my “T. rex” posture probably hasn’t helped them. I think: “If it is already this bad, how will I ever get in shape for spring migration?” 

But I digress. The GBBC is a great reason (hey, it even has “Great” in its name!) to enlist others in birding, like my seven year old who atavistically id’s sparrows faster and more accurately than you or I can (but still hasn’t conjured a Fox Sparrow this year to my Helianthus-husked suburboscape.) It’s a collective birding experience that doesn’t require a trip to Cape May or to High Island; instead, you’re downright encouraged to stay home and look out your windows, or at most to hobble over to your local park for fifteen minutes or so; crucially, you need not interact with anyone at all if you don’t feel like it.

And the GBBC is not actually spiked with intrigue: there are in reality no stakeouts; no complex strategies; no guarded itineraries; the hardcore birders don’t give a rat’s ass about this eBird/Audubon marketing stunt. But that doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful, especially if you decide to convert this from an annual one-off event into something more regular, more varied and engaging–to form it into a habit, not just an annual occurrence. The GBBC is a gateway to caring, and sustaining that care, making a plan to go birding, and following through. And possibly sharing the fun with others close to you.

Especially enthusiastic part-feral seven-year-olds.

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Sympathy Optics

Once the initial shock of my Parkinson’s diagnosis wore off—which admittedly was a shock that lasted at several weeks if not months—my wife began to search* for a serious upgrade to my thirty year old B&L Elite scope. Coincidence? She denies any connection whatsoever to the PD, but in no time at all the spotting scope I’d been coveting for a long, long time magically arrived at my door. Complete with matching cover and case, additions I would never have sought but which admittedly are quite handsome. “Pity optics!” I cried indecorously, whooping and hollering at first sight of the box.

So “pity optics” is a real thing? Brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you that it is! I was lucky: it’s best if the urge to fulfill the need for new glass comes on with little provocation, as it did for my wife, but If for some reason your partner has not quite come around to it yet, you might need to do a little soft nudging and subtle hinting at the crucial existence and sublime beauty of pity optics. Words are important, and pity is an ugly word, so maybe we should call them “sympathy optics.” If you’re one of the poor bastards who needs it, here’s a little primer on the topic of sympathy optics:

Sympathy Optics—the basic rules

  1. Assess the situation. First and foremost, realize that your potential for success correlates strongly with your partner’s happiness and satisfaction with your relationship. If that’s not where it needs to be, forget it—you’ve got more important fish to fry!
  2. Drop hints. The longer you have been referring to your dream setup, the better. Be careful not to overwhelm with the details; focus on how much better x would make your birding and therefore your life. Bonus points if you can relate this to hints you dropped before your PD diagnosis!
  3. Don’t be greedy. It’s OK to aspire to gear in a price range that is a stretch out of your household’s regular comfort zone for purchases, but not a huge leap outside it.
  4. Bins are an exception. It’s not at all clear that the limit above (rule #3) applies to binoculars, especially if yours look like WWII surplus.
  5. Be flexible. If you already have all the equipment you need or can handle (keeping in mind that your ability to handle that gear is melting away faster than soft-serve in July ), the “sympathy optics” impulse may, if you are lucky, be parlayed into “sympathy birding travel.” Its awkward wording belies its terrific potential. Because you’ve just got to see more birds while you still can!
  6. Be gracious. Seriously, remember your role in this—share your desires when asked but don’t micromanage the process. Your loved one wants to do something for you, to help you enjoy birding even more. The only appropriate response to such a thoughtful and generous gift is gratitude!

*RIP Eagle Optics

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PD and Binoculars

There are so many solid binocular options out there, and comparison guides for all budgets. I don’t have the time or energy to replicate those. Instead, some advice–if you are in the market for binoculars—maybe you’ve just started birding, or maybe you’re looking to upgrade—some time-tested rules apply, with a few special twists for people with Parkinson’s:

Buy the best binoculars you can afford.  This maxim of birding holds true no matter what your health status. But in particular if you have PD there’s no time like the present to improve your optics!  Replacing your old binoculars with ones that have sharper, brighter images will make birding more pleasurable in a wider variety of weather and lighting conditions, and keeping the disease in mind can help you make choices to enhance the experience.

Trade magnification for field of view and forgiveness of image. The two magic numbers in binoculars (e.g., 7×35) refer, respectively, to the magnification (power) and the size of the objective (light-gathering) lens in millimeters.  Objective lenses being equal, a lower magnification means you don’t seem to be quite as close to the bird, but as a tradeoff the image is generally brighter, and the greater field of view you may also gain is more forgiving of shakiness and helps keep an active bird in view.

If you wear eyeglasses, pay attention to “exit pupil” and “eye relief.” Even the sharpest-visioned of us may succumb to presbyopia. Eye relief is the maximum distance your eye can be from the eyepiece lens and still see the whole image–and if you wear glasses, you want that distance to be as long as possible. Exit pupil is the measurement of the width of the image coming through the eyepiece and, again, bigger is generally better.

Consider the kind of birding (and other wildlife observation) you like to do. If (in addition to birds of course) you also want to study butterflies and dragonflies, you should pay attention to close-focus distances (shorter is better). Do you need waterproof bins?  Will you be birding in very humid environments where fogging might become an issue?

Most importantly, the best bins are those that bring you happiness and that you will actually use. Consider the weight and feel of the binoculars in your hands–do they feel natural and comfortable?  With PD it is easy to become fatigued; will your bins become too tiring to hold?  Some people actually prefer heavier binoculars, since their mass serves as an inertial damper to counteract shaking and tremor.  Others prefer smaller, lighter bins that easily slip into a bag and go everywhere. With so many decisions, the choice of binoculars comes down ultimately to personal preferences.

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Shaky Hands Embrace Monopods

I am attached to my binoculars.  When I found out I had PD, I didn’t want new bins, I wanted to find a way to continue to use the old familiar binoculars that have served me well.  But my hands were shaky– (shocking, right!?)–and it was getting harder and harder to use my bins without some kind of added stabilization.

No matter how good your binoculars are, tremors and shaking make these most essential birding tools frustrating at best and useless at worst.  Since an investment in optics is one many of us have already made, it makes sense, at least early on, to look for an additive, not substitutive, solution to steadying the view.

Enter the monopod.  More stable than shaky hands, lighter and less bulky than a tripod, and able to do double-duty (bonus!) as a walking stick, a monopod was the right equipment to match this stage of my PD progression. 

Monopods were created for photographers and the setup for birders is trivial: they have standard photo mounting screws to which you affix a generic clamp or possibly one bespoke for your particular brand/model of binoculars. Some binoculars even have a mounting screw (usually up front of the bridge, sometimes covered by a plastic cap) that allows them to be solidly attached to a bracket connected to the monopod’s head.  I have found in all but the windiest of weather conditions that I don’t even need to clip the bins onto the pod, it’s enough simply to rest them atop the platform, and then to lean on the whole apparatus. (Regardless of whether I clip the bins in or not, I keep their strap around my neck just in case.)

As with any piece of photography-oriented equipment, the range of options is huge and daunting. One challenge for me was in finding a monopod that was tall enough to reach my eye level (and preferably to exceed it for tilting back and looking at birds above the horizontal). Since monopods have mainly been built to photographers’ specs, extra inches were expected to be provided by a mounting head and the camera body itself, and as a result very few were designed to be tall enough for my 6’ 2” frame. With my eye level at about 68”, it took a good amount of searching to find the very few monopods out there that exceeded 60” in height. Knowing that working to maintain good posture is extremely important for those with PD, I sought the tallest monopod I could find.

The author’s monopod in action. Note the bins are just resting on the pod, making it easy to grab and scan for birds, then return them to the stability of the monopod for more careful study.

Beyond height, other considerations were weight and material (the two directly related, as in carbon fiber), number of segments (i.e., how compactly it can collapse), and type of joints (flip latches, twist latches).  After a lot of research online, my wife and I found ourselves looking at a small set of extra-long  Manfrotto and Benro ‘pods. We settled on the Benro MAD49A. This pod has an impressive 72” maximum height and folds down to about 21”. The latter is important not just for travel, but also because I frequently find myself sitting on a bench or even in a parked car and desiring some assistance with stabilization.  As to the former, those extra inches of height, when fully extended, let me scan into the treetops–depending of course on how far I am from them. With five segments of aluminum/magnesium tubing it’s certainly not the lightest pod one can buy (weighing in at almost two pounds) but it feels exceptionally sturdy, and it seems to me the mass of the monopod helps serve as a damper to the antagonizing small shaking movements in my hands.  The flip-locks make it easy to open, close, and adjust the extension of the monopod, even for noncompliant fingers. With this rig, my binocular clamp remains constantly screwed onto the monopod, but I attach the binoculars only when necessary (i.e., in gusty winds).

So far, so good…

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Welcome

I started birding because I found golf too frustrating. Boy, did I have that wrong!

I am in my fifties and I’ve been a birder off and on for the last 35 years. In early 2019 I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease — somewhere near the cusp of “early onset,” which I hope means I have many more years to live with the disease.

An introvert, I enjoy birding alone, but do not mind a brief exchange with a fellow birder or joining up with a small group here and there. Once in a while. Rarely.  I am not much of a chaser; I certainly enjoy seeing a lifer, or visiting a new place with new birds, but by the same token I take delight in the visitors to my New England feeders and the birds of the nearby fields, ponds, and forests.

It has been my great fortune over the years to go birding with a number of accomplished birders. With them I’ve watched migrating hawks at extreme distances, hiked through scrub and bog and swamp, and stared mostly fruitlessly out to sea. In spite of those who have been more than generous in sharing their avian wisdom and birdlore, I remain stubbornly average in birding skill.

When I found out I had PD, I went looking for resources on the web. I couldn’t find much about or by birders who were also living with Parkinson’s. Hence this blog–which I plan to fill with tips and advice, reflections on the intersection of PD and birding, and anything else that I feel like including.

I aim to keep birding in defiance of Parkinson’s, to see new birds and get to know even the commonest birds better, to meet others who share this passion, to keep learning, to share what I learn along the way, and above all to maintain a sense of humor. I welcome your feedback (as long as it’s positive.)

“Birder” or “Birdwatcher” (or other?)
Birder

Years you’ve been birding *or* age you started birding?
about 35 years

Did a specific sighting or experience hook you? How did you get started birding?
Friends took me birding to Ferd’s Bog, I saw an Olive-sided Flycatcher grab a dragonfly and I was hooked.

What was your most recent life bird?
Yellow-breasted Chat

Do you have a “nemesis” bird?
Up til last winter, that would be Pine Siskin

What is your favorite place to bird?
I love the parks near my home, and places like Parker River NWR and Central Park (New York).

“binoculars” “bins” “binocs” or “field glasses”?
bins

When you’re not birding, you are
connecting philanthropists to MIT

Optional: How long have you been living with Parkinson’s?
I was diagnosed in March 2019