After trying for about half an hour to photograph this little Heart-spotted Woodpecker all I could manage was this photo! I’ll take it!!

Before embarking on a birding trip, I always attend to a few traditions.  First, I get a bird book for the location to which I am traveling, a necessary step in order to familiarize myself with the birds of that region.  When I am birding in the eastern United States, my guide of choice is Sibley’s Guide to Eastern Birds; likewise, when birding in the western United States, I choose its contemporary, Sibley’s Guide to Western Birds.  However, when birding internationally, I have found that Princeton makes unbelievably good field guides for a tremendous variety of places.  I purchased the Princeton Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa for my trip to Kenya, and for this most recent trip, the choice was easy – the Princeton Field Guide to the Birds of India (including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives).

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A photo I had to take and post. Although you probably cannot even make out the bird this is #1000,                                      a Grey-headed Fish Eagle

Five years ago, my dad and I walked out of our front door and embarked on my first serious bird walk.  As soon as we stepped outside, a House Sparrow flew from the roof of my neighbor’s house and landed in a nearby bush – #1.  Throughout the next year, the two of us birded New Jersey extensively, adding to my North American life list.  Luckily, New Jersey is one of the best birding states in the country.  It is small enough to travel from one location to another in less than four hours to see any bird that winds up in a place like Cape May or even Stokes Forest in High Point, and located right by the coast, it has become famous for both spring and fall migrants and for seabirds on Sandy Hook and at Cape May Point.  Furthermore, the hawk migration, during the fall months in the mountainous western part of the state, is certainly something to behold and has captivated my interest over the past few years.  Within a year of birding in New Jersey alone, I was able to see 200 birds, my 200th being a Clapper Rail in the marshes at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR.

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Long-billed Sunbird

I now have a better understanding of what baseball players mean when they talk about reaching an important milestone and how happy they will be when it’s over.  The nerves and anticipation that go along with these symbolic but meaningful round numbers have always captivated people, myself included.  I remember being in the stands when Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees hit his 500th home run; the relief and joy on his face were exciting to see.  Now, my circumstance is nowhere near as significant, and the media is certainly not following me, but I myself am on the brink of a major milestone here at Cardamom County.

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