Tag: Lawnchair Birding

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Geri birding is not a crime

juvenile ruby-throated hummingbird hovers next to a nectar feeder
a young Ruby-throated Hummingbird visits a feeder, a prominent non-avian feature of most geri-birding photos

The irreverent bird blogger Felonious Jive both lovingly and pejoratively calls it “geri birding,” but you can’t beat it when the weather gets hot and muggy. The slower-paced, more sedentary approach to birding may not just be more comfortable, it can be essential for many PD sufferers who find hot weather exacerbates their symptoms. I personally am not sure how much my bias toward a more leisurely pace of birding is caused by this PD-specific reaction, or how much it is just due to my longstanding aversion to heat, humidity, and mosquitos, but it’s a useful excuse regardless to spend more time birding from a cushy, cool nook indoors. And it’s not just for the hot days of summer–geri birding is great year-round, so fill those feeders, train your scope and bins on them, get comfy, and let the birds come to you.

Feeling a bit too reserved? PD birders who want to go to the next level can join me in this fall’s Big Sit, October 9 and 10, 2021. The event is perhaps the pinnacle of geri birding, as individuals or teams count as many birds as they can from within the confines of a 17-foot-diameter circle. (Think of it as a nanoscale CBC.) Sure, some ambitious birders choose exceptionally birdy locations for their big sits, and the event’s organizers “encourage new circles to be located in national, state, or local wildlife refuges, land trusts, forests, parks, or other such areas,” but I embrace the carbon-friendly, lawnchair-forward, sedentary nature of the backyard Big Sit. Plus, since October 9 is also October Global Big Day, you get a twofer on your list!

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ADK 2020

“Forever Wild” is debatable as we cross the Blue Line doing 70 mph on the six-lane Northway, but the Adirondack Park is indisputably big: a contiguous but internally fragmented mass, government lands veined with private property and huge tracts of private land; nineteenth century Great Camps like Jack Ma’s retreat on 28,000 acres, these parcels eclipsed in turn by holdings of timber companies you’ve likely never heard of (Molpus, Lyme)—273 thousand and 240 thousand acres respectively—the People of the Great State of New York’s 2.6 million acres of wild forest, the park in total 6 million acres.

What a great place for lawnchair birding! I picked up 18 year birds (41 species total) in just a few days hunkered down on my campsite, including three warblers I missed in migration — Blackburnian, B-t Green, and, my favorite, Magnolia. (In camping trip planning I always question the added weight, but I am never sorry to have brought the scope; an angled eyepiece or module dramatically boosts the octane level of “big sit” birding and is a superior tool for people with PD.)

Ravens are awesome, and I was glad to see and hear several every day, chatting each other up with a wide variety of vocalizations. It was a privilege to catch a glimpse of a Black-backed Woodpecker and to become newly cognizant of the odd, ringtone-like song of a Junco, a vocalization I never get from my winter visitors. The more familiar call of a Common Loon is hopeful, not haunting: it speaks volumes about the health of the watershed, and Osprey and Bald Eagle affirm that the fishing is good, healthy up and down the food chain.