I once visited the Queens Botanical Garden and recall it’s beauty, but mostly remember the vast greenery, flowers, and bugs (I definitely wish there were as many birds as there were bugs). As a bird lover, I was pretty excited to have the opportunity to see what birds I’d find at the New York Botanical Garden. Although I was not formally told so, having combined my own experience with birds, and having participated in Bioblitz, I concluded that birds are skilled at manipulating our senses.
As soon as we entered, I was shocked to see a red-tailed hawk sitting on a post, out in the open! Even from as far as we were, our guide was able to easily identify it, which I found incredible. Overwhelmed by our find, we all looked through our binoculars to see the hawk, only to take our chances moving closer. We were able to get considerably close, and when it flew away, it was so sudden, and so majestic, I unfortunately froze and stared instead of snapping a picture like I intended too. It’s wingspan was at least 3-4 feet, making the hawk so much more intimidating than how it looked simply perched on the post.
After that, it was quite hard to spot other birds. In total, with the help of the bird watching guidebook provided for us and our experienced birdwatcher, we identified a total of 10 types of birds: a Red-tailed hawk, Blue jay, Northern flicker, Chimney swift, American robin, Song sparrow, Grey catbird, Ruby-throated humming bird, Canadian goose, and the Great blue heron. Although it sounds like a lot, it was not nearly equivalent to the amount of birds we heard, and the number of them that were too far for us to identify. While walking through the more woody parts of the Botanic Garden, there were so many different birdcalls. However, when we looked in the direction of the sound, we’d see nothing, then suddenly hear it coming from a totally different direction. Our guide informed us that it’s completely normal, because birds have the ability to throw their voices, which makes their location very difficult to pinpoint.
I was fascinated by how much I learned, and just how hard it was to go bird watching! It was definitely a great experience, and an eye-opener on just how long it must have taken to identify species of birds – and how many species are probably still unidentified.
