Growing up in the suburban New York City area, surrounded by beech/oak forest, we sat in a wonderful place to enjoy the seasonal comings and goings of a wide variety of birds. And since my parents were avid gardeners, we were even better situated to enjoy the local bird populations. Feeding the birds, especially during winter, became an annual family ritual … and a battle.
Throughout the year, we had cardinals and blue jays, grackles and starlings, chickadees, warblers, and a long host of what I later heard described as LBJs — little brown jobs. (I’m working on getting better at ID’ing those!) Indeed, one summer when I was about 10 years old, I read in the Audubon Encyclopedias sitting on the family room shelf that there was this bird called the ivory-billed woodpecker. Not bothering to read the details about habitat and, likely extinct status, I organized the neighborhood posse of other 10-year-olds and we spent the entire summer scouring the woods.
Guess how that turned out…