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.