I haven't been birding by myself in a few months.... perhaps the last time was in Copenhagen, about 5 months ago. But that was in peak winter, and the pickings were far and few.
Birding is funny in some ways- depending on who I do it with, I feel differently about it. It is the most meditative, pleasurable and calming activity when I am by myself. I enjoy it when I am with Goose, my younger one. Goose doesn't care so much about birds, but she likes observing nature and staring at flowers and insects and how things interact with each other- she would any day like to observe a bird eating an insect than a bird sitting by itself somewhere.... she takes a Birds Eye view about birding, lol! In my mind, when I am with Goose, I am the person helping her appreciate things around her. It's a very conscious act and role that I take on, though I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
My older one, Ani, well, I haven't birded with him alone in a very long time, actually, never. It's almost always with others, either his cousins or with RK. He's an excellent intuitive birder, having been taught by RK almost from the time he was a toddler. But he tends to get bored by the same old birds (who doesn't?) and can be a bit lazy. He is at the stage where the diagnosis is all important, not the story.
Birding with RK, I have realised, is neither meditative nor calming. It's educational and energising. But at the end of it, I don't have the sense of deep connection with the earth or the sky or nature as I do when I am by myself. I think it's because of a sense of urgency that he instills in the process- there's no time to stand and stare. Or maybe he's really fast and gets impatient with plodders like me.
The opportunity to bird by myself comes occasionally, not too often. I like to plan it out- where to go, how, by when and so on. I research the birds I am likely to see by browsing through eBird the night before. Since I depend on public transport or my own two legs, I choose the places I go to very carefully. Twice or thrice, I have booked a cab to reach slightly out-of-the-way places, but these have never been by myself. I think there are two reasons for this: one is that I am careful- no matter how old a woman gets, traipsing by oneself is not wise. And the second is, I am not very comfortable splurging a few thousand rupees just for myself. I would much rather spend it when someone else is with me.
Once I reach the place, I am a meanderer. I don't like rushing about. I take deep breaths, trying to let go of my usual avatar, City Varsha, and to calm myself down. Invariably, there will be no birds seen in the first minutes, though their songs carry in the wind, and occasional glimpses of wings can be caught. This is mostly because Birder Varsha, the patient, observant, curious avatar hasn't yet fully come into being.
For me, birding is a way to give in to curiosity. I use my binos on a lot of things, even those that I know aren't birds. There will be strange-shaped leaves, the angle of light and shadows creates shapes that capture my attention, there will be nests of various types... I try comparing how things look through my glasses and what I imagine the thing to be, with what the clarity of binos reveal. At times, I collect seeds, leaves, and twigs because in that moment it seems unbearable that I can't take this world back with me. I have given up collecting flowers because they lose their magic so quickly, wilting and browning a few minutes in my little bag. Seeds are the best, because they retain the potential to hope. You can stare at them and imagine the tree they will grow to be, plant them and water them and pray that they sprout and that the sapling survives. There were a set of seeds that I brought back from the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun that are now sturdy little plants at home and I always hope that the other seeds I collect can be at least slightly successful. Most have not, but the hope remains.
I am neither an intuitive birder nor a very experienced one. It's like a language that you learn in adulthood, needing frequent laborious mental translations and references to dictionaries. I still get confused between birds that look kind of similar like robins and bush chats, still can't entirely tell which ones are the females. Raptors are the chapter I never got to in my studies. What I think I am decent at are small-ish birds that mostly hang out in trees or fly between grasses and trees. I say small-ish, because warblers are small and hang out in trees and I cannot figure them out at all.
The sign of a successful birding expedition is if I can see birds under my eyelids after I return home and sleep.
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