Ordinary Birds

For this ordinary (and lazy) birder

One of my faves here on this platform, Dennett, wows me almost every day with her photos of a breathtaking variety of beautiful birds that live near her. I’m in awe of her mad skills with the camera and a wee bit jealous of all those birds. That’s silly of me, the jealous bit.

One might think that New York City couldn’t possibly compete with places like the patch of Florida Dennett calls home when it comes to birds.

One would be wrong.

Being on the flight paths of spring and autumn migrations brings just about every description of bird here at some point during the year. All I have to do is get out there and look up. I used to wonder why I never saw any of those famous red-tailed hawks everyone was talking about. Then on a walk around the Harlem Meer one day I remembered to look up and sure enough, there went one gliding right over my head.

So the cool birds are here. No doubt about it. And before anyone throws shade on the Canada geese, let’s just remember that 80 years ago they were thought to be extinct. Ok? So, yeah, they are cool. Just watch where you walk.

My favorite Tweeters to follow are birders. Because of them I know that there’s a Western Tanager charming the Upper East Side and the odd couple — the male Wood Duck who seems to have hooked up with the lady Mallard — are over on the Reservoir. Then there are the famed dancing Woodcocks of Bryant Park. There’s even a pair of Snowy Egrets who have paused to do some fishing on the Meer each spring on their way somewhere else (these I know about first hand having been enchanted by them for the past five springs at least).

None of those are the birds I manage to photograph. It’s not that I don’t see those birds — well, ok, I haven’t seen that Tanager or the Woodcocks — but I seem incapable of getting any of those amazing shots like those I see Dennett or the Twitter Tweeters do so effortlessly.

I photograph ordinary birds. Like city birds eating ramen. Ordinary.

It might have something to do with the fact that I am not a photographer. I’m a writer with a phone that has a pretty decent camera. So I’m not zooming in for the brilliant shot of that Wood Duck and his Mallard consort. I’m getting shots of the Reservoir with dots that you have to surmise are birds (what else would be floating out there like that?).

What I seem to be able to manage are the occasional semi-decent shots of the brown birds, the little birds, the ordinary birds who visit my fire escape. I put out seed and the birds come.

Not the exotics. Not the visitors who grace us twice a year and then go their way after sending our birders into paroxysms of joy.

Not for me. For me, there are the sparrows and wrens. The mourning doves. Every so often a blue jay (and those suckers are hard to photograph!). Even so, we’re not talking Cedar Waxwings or Yellow-Rumped Warblers here. I sit here and write — after putting out seed of course — and watch who comes to chow down. I keep the phone handy and once every week or so I get a passable photo of an ordinary bird.

Then there’s that once-in-a-lifetime shot when the “ordinary” bird on the fire escape is a red-tailed hawk, but even then it wasn’t me getting that shot (thank you, AleXander!).

But overall it’s just me with the little brown birds. The cheeky little monsters who make an inordinate amount of noise and appear to be pooping like crazy all over the fire escape below ours. Or the mildly dotty-looking mourning doves. These are not birds who warble or trill. There’s no flashy plumage happening.

These are my birds.

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