Thursday was our second bus trip of the Village Birders to the Adair Wildlife Area. On Tuesday we took the first load of Village Birders. I'm thinking back to when this whole bus birding thing started up. In December of 2019 when we were signing our paperwork to move to Dallas Retirement Village with Sales Director Tawnya, she had the bright idea that Dallas Retirement Village could provide a bus and driver for me to lead residents on birding trips. By Spring 2020, we were all dealing with Covid, and close confinement in a bus was not a good idea, but I went ahead and lead bird walks on foot in the Village every Saturday morning. Everyone wore a mask and stayed six feet apart. In 2021 we were able to start our first bus trips. By the end of the year, we were having to turn people away for lack of space. In Spring of 2022, I arranged to have a second bus, but due to scheduling conflicts, I had to run both trips on the same day. Now in 2023, we are able to run a bus trip on Tuesday, and then a second bus trip on Thursday. It's rewarding for me to see the growing interest and participation as people discover the joys of birding.
The latest improvement to the birding world is the use of the phone app "Merlin" to identify birds by sound. This is the greatest change since digital cameras, and before that, binoculars. It levels the playing field. A person brand new to birding is able to participate and begin to build their knowledge of birds without having to depend on someone else with years of experience to make an identification of a bird song. I now suggest every participant bring their smartphone, as well as their binoculars.
No comments:
Post a Comment