My husband mowed the yard this weekend. While we usually wait until early May, the spring rain helped the grass grow tall by mid-April. As I’m writing, my street is bursting with birdsong- in just a few minutes, I hear Northern Cardinals and European Starlings. Without binoculars, a visual count is quick and rough: 11 species, 40 individuals.
I’ve been a lazy birder so far this year. I feel ashamed for neglecting my duty to my patch, choosing instead to sleep in whenever I have the chance. My shame leads to guilt; who else but me can capture spring migration in my patch, as millions of birds soar overhead at night and refresh themselves here by the hundreds during the day? There isn’t any good reason for any of my choices, simply my own lame excuses like “poor time management” and “too stressed to sleep.” For now, I have this moment, perched on my back porch at the edge of my patch.
Patch birding isn’t a new phenomenon. Birding by patch, selecting a local place and birding regularly, is easy and accessible to all birders. A patch is typically small, ranging from a single yard up to a few square miles. In my opinion, some of the best birding reads are British patch blogs, the daily reports of dedicated village birders. Two favorites are Birding with a Sketchbook and Confessions of a lapsed birder, both who use nature sketching and journaling to record their patch adventures.
My patch starts in my yard, following the street up the hill and down the other side to the dock. It’s a one mile walk for me, and in this walk, I cover an area of about 14 acres. Compared to others, my patch is not very large or complex. Land use varies between village homes of simple yards, roadways, and State Park lands dominated by invasive shrubs, “reclaimed” farmland, and the lake.
The patch has its regulars, as all patches do. In spring, Red-winged Blackbirds and American Robins sweep through. Summer is dominated by European Starlings and Common Grackles calling from the treetops. Fall is for Northern Cardinals and Tufted Titmice to flit through shrubs searching for berries and seeds. Winter is totally owned by Dark-eyed Juncos and Mourning Doves scurrying through the snow under feeders.
In comparison to the patches around me, my species list is low… only 28 species in total. My limit is my birding style: slow visual birding accompanied with a limited repertoire of memorized birdsong. The effects of multiple concussions in conjunction with dyscalculia aren’t a great combination in a birder. I can hear and appreciate the birdsong, but my brain struggles to parse the sounds into identification.
It’s like this: if I’m listening to an orchestral piece, I can identify the percussion section from the woodwinds, but I can’t tell the difference between a clarinet and a saxophone. When I am listening to birdsong, I can identify the strong voices, yet most are a jumble of notes, a melody of immeasurable beauty but total mystery. I can tell the characteristic oak-a-lee of a Red-winged Blackbird from gentle coo of a Mourning Dove … but the rest? Good luck. If you bird my patch with me, I will need your help more than you would need mine.
Despite my struggles, focusing on my patch makes birding a simple affair. In the morning, I can do a yard list while sipping coffee on the back porch. Lunch walks are to the dock, cheap binoculars around my neck and eBird queued up on my phone. I know who to expect, and just about when. Some days, I feel as if the locals know about when and where to expect me.
After yard birding, I return indoors, tired of fighting the wind’s pull at my notebook pages. From my reading chair, I can see the Starlings fluttering in my neighbor’s tree. A pair has taken over the winter roost mounted on the side of my garage, undeterred by my daily emptying of the box and replacing the hole cover.
Even though they carry the title as my life’s nemesis, European Starlings are the most common in my yard. Their broken, jagged calls greet me as I slowly bird from my back porch in the mornings. They are the bulk of my eBird lists, the most cheerful and clever of my avian neighbors. Closely following are House Sparrows and American Robins, both which live close to my home 80% of the year. The species I most desire for my yard are Purple Martins, but the Starlings have made short work of any scout attempting to check this block for gourds.
As competitive as birding may be, I have found patch birding to be the best. Staying close to home and building my relationship with the birds that live here helps me feel connected to the cyclical changes in nature. My life would feel incomplete if I didn’t watch the Starlings harass and harangue each other. I will never be a bird photographer or a lister, just a simple “patcher” with a love for the locals.