Evolution of a Birding Evangelist

     For those of you who know me well, it should be incredibly obvious why the subject of this blog is birding. For those of you who don't know me or have been living under a rock, I suppose a bit of explanation is in order.
     When I was young, I had a habit of cycling through different "favorite animals" at a fairly quick pace. For a while, I had a major infatuation with prairie dogs, and my preschool and kindergarten teachers still remember me as "the prairie dog kid". As I entered grade school, however, my interests shifted away from small fuzzy rodents. Being a rather zoologically inclined child (a docent at the Monterey Bay Aquarium called me a "budding marine biologist"), I tended to have preferences a bit more obscure than the standard menagerie of cats, dogs, ponies, and parrots. Instead, I was the self-proclaimed biggest fan of pteranodons, giant squid, pikas, skunks, colugos, or hyraxes. It may sound odd now, but there was a point where I really didn't like birds. Great horned owls in particular were considered malicious and unlikable simply because they ate skunks.
     The first bird I remember taking the honors of my favorite animal was the secretarybird, a large, long-legged, predatory ground-dweller from Africa. I was in third grade then. Other bird species quickly grabbed my attention, everything from bearded vultures to the world's largest pigeon. I would do oral presentations to the class accompanied by a full-sized drawing of the bird I was describing. Mammals and invertebrates never made a comeback on my Top 10 list.
     I started watching wild birds in 2006, during a trip to Seattle. With weak binoculars and not much experience, my finds were pretty much limited to ducks and herons.  However, there was one event in particular that made me consider myself a true birder. We were out at Juanita Bay Park when I spotted a pair of ducks that had just landed in the water. They were both hooded mergansers, a species that is completely unmistakable. I had never seen any members of that species before, so I stood around on a pier for several minutes with the binoculars glued to my face. It started raining, but I stayed out there watching them until it got wet to the point that I actually couldn't see them through the rain.
     In 2007, my mother took me to an event hosted by the Champaign County Audubon Society for kids interested in birding. It was one of the first times I had really gone birding specifically to find smaller, tree-dwelling species like cedar waxwings and wood-peewees. The Audubon members told me I could come to their regular events, so I did.
     Now, five years later, I'm the youngest regular attendee of local birdwalks. I've seen more than 350 species of birds in the wild, over 100 of those right here in my hometown. There are species I see quite often now that I would never have dreamed of finding when I was just starting out. Identification of most birds is much easier now, and my vision is oddly tuned to pick out certain fluttering movements characteristic of warblers. But maybe I'm a bit lonely as practically the only birder in my area who hasn't gone to undergraduate college yet.
     If this blog has a mission statement, it's quite simple: to get other people interested in birding. I've sort of taken it upon myself to spread the hobby since the local Audubon Society hasn't had any more events specifically for beginners since the one I attended in 2007. Trust me, it's difficult (getting people interested, that is). Still, I try my best.
     The title of this blog refers to the fact that the area where I live contains some oases of forest and lakes in the middle of the largely bird-unfriendly soy and cornfield desert. During migration, birds have to stop and eat somewhere, and Champaign County has some pretty good sites. Forests and artificial lakes provide food and shelter for birds on their long flights between breeding and wintering grounds, and provide convenient locations where lots of interesting species are readily visible to birders.
     One more thing, for those of you who don't know the terminology:
     Birdwatching and birding are essentially the same thing, but birding tends to have a connotation of being a more active and regular activity. Since birding has one less syllable, I'll use it more often.