Birding Regrets, A Tragedy in Five Acts

Many Sore Spots and One Giant Wound

Act 1. Regret auf Deutsch

I’ve seen 90 birds in the state of New York. Last summer I added American Oystercatcher, Horned Lark, and Saltmarsh Sparrow, among others. Every time my New York life list grows, the weight of my birding regret gets a little lighter.

I suppose my regret first began to accumulate in Austria in 1997. I was a sophomore at Ohio University majoring in English but also enjoying the German classes I would eventually take enough of to earn a double major. When I saw a flier in the language lab advertising a study abroad program in Salzburg, Austria, I thought Why not? I applied, was accepted, and thanks to the generosity of my parents, was set to travel outside of North America for the first time in my life. That April I boarded the plane that would transport me and my fellow German enthusiasts to our home for the next ten weeks.

That was ten weeks of learning a lot of German, drinking gallons of Hefeweizen, eating a ton of Wienerschnitzel, possibly kissing a girl, and doing absolutely no birding. Oh, and let’s not forget the side trips around Europe (what a wondrous thing that Eurail Pass was), Paris, Rome, and Hamburg among them.

Many cities. Endless memories. One bird—this Yellow-billed Chough I photographed on a whim and only identified last year.

Because I did some serious journaling during that study abroad, I had the exact date and location of the sighting, so you bet your ass I entered it into eBird. Still, for a guy raised by birders, ten weeks in Europe should have yielded more than one lousy Chough.

Reue. Es klebt an mir wie getrocknete Vogelscheiße.¹

Act 2. A Plain Slice of New York-Style Regret

When I married Alex in August of 2000, we were already bound for New York City. I was enrolled in the masters program for English and American literature at NYU, ready to begin an academic career that shriveled on the vine within a year. I finished the degree, but there would be no PhD. That was a good thing. No regrets there.

Had I been able to peer into the future, however…had I been able to commune with my middle-aged self, I might have invested in a pair of binoculars and made use of Central Park, Pelham Bay, Jones Beach State Park, all the amazing birding destinations in and around New York City.

Alas, I didn’t. And I really shouldn’t beat myself up too much. I was a newly married 24-year-old kid living the NYC life I had dreamed of. Aside from the degree, I was heavily into taekwondo (getting myself beat up too much). I was reading, writing, even (gasp) meditating. We had our friends. We had my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. We were also watching movies. Lots of movies, and our burgeoning passion for cinema would come to shape our fate, as you’ll see. All this to say, it was a rich and fulfilling life. But the question dogs me to this day—why wasn’t I birding?

That question is a persistent cuss, because when you marry Alex, you marry into a family that is spread out over several continents. You also marry a woman whose wanderlust takes you to those continents. Lots of travel to come. Not much birding.

Regret. It’s a Peregrine Falcon, and I’m a New York Pigeon.

Act 3. Regret Goes West

By the time I graduated in 2002, Alex had already been accepted at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. We would spend the next two years in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains while she pursued an MFA in creative writing. Two years out west. Lots of birds ready and willing to be watched. By then I even had a compact pair of binoculars that Dad bought me, just in case I wanted to do a little birding.

I guess I never did. As of today, I have one bird on my Colorado life list, the only bird I remember from those two years—Black-billed Magpie. Again, it’s not like my days weren’t full. I started writing my never-to-be-finished novel in Boulder. I also worked 40 hours a week at Barnes & Noble, earning an hourly wage that was comically low but included an employee discount I wish I had used to purchase a field guide to western birds.

In a lot of ways, those two years in Colorado were among my favorites. We were broker than we’ve ever been, and yet there was a charm to our simple life. We spent many days exploring the mountains in our creaky, third-hand Honda station wagon, and by night we prowled the shelves of The Video Station, a beautiful independent video rental store that was jam-packed with titles and knowledgeable staff members, and was ultimately murdered by Netflix in 2017. Back home, we’d watch rental after rental (including The Birds and The Birdman of Alcatraz) on the smallest possible screen.

I estimate half of my salary went to VHS and DVD rentals from The Video Station, thanks to which we were able to make our way through the entire oeuvres (look at me, using fancy French words) of our favorite actors—Ingrid Bergman, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Alec Guinness. And of course Audrey Hepburn, and here’s where our movie binging would determine our fate, and my next round of birding regrets.

Regret. How it claws at me, like the talons of the Ferruginous Hawks I never looked for.

Act 4. Regret en Français

As our time in Boulder was winding down, Alex’s adventurous spirit was kindled by Sabrina and the year the titular character spent in Paris, torturing soufflés (yes I am very fancy with my French vocabulary) and perfecting her language skills.

Alex (already fluent in French): “Let’s move to France.”

Nate (knew the words oeuvre and soufflé): “Okay.”

We spent an interim year in Akron, during which Alex taught me French (only fair, since I had taught her to ride a bike and drive a car). Then, thanks to the Assistants program, we were able to spend two years in France teaching English as a second language to grade schoolers and not looking at birds. There were trips around Europe too—Paris, Rome, Madrid. The number of hours I spent birding in those two years? Zero. Happily, there were pictures taken, like this one in Copenhagen, where we traveled to meet the Danish branch of Alex’s family in the spring of 2006.

Pictured here are my beautiful wife, two Mute Swans, a handful of Mallards (including one domestic type at top right), and, I just discovered, a Eurasian Coot. Yes, I made an eBird checklist. Yes, my regret is now a little less.

But of course the real opportunity was in France, which included one year in Le Mans and a second year in La Roche-sur-Yon. Yet the only birds I can remember from that time are the ones I ate.

Ah, les regrets. Ils sont comme le bec d’une mouette qui picote ma carcasse pourrie.²

Act 5. Regret en Español

Okay, time for a reality check. I’ve been incredibly privileged to have lived in and traveled to so many amazing places. The fact is, I started birding on a daily basis at just the right time, when my mind, body, and spirit most needed the kind of nourishment only nature can provide. Also, we visit friends and family in New York regularly, so my New York list will continue to grow. My birding bestie lives near Boulder. I know I’ll make a triumphant birding return to Colorado. I made up for some lost time in Europe during a 2021 trip to Portugal, where we visited Alex’s Aunt Jenny and I picked up 36 species.

I’m lucky. I’m content. I have a robust life list in the making.

BUT…

I’ve been skating around the big one. My biggest Regret. The one that necessitates a capital R, because this Regret is Real.

Venezuela. My wife’s motherland. Home to some 1,400 bird species. We traveled there together for the first time in 1999, and while we certainly partied like we were supposed to during that particular year, I was completely oblivious to the avian life surrounding me, whether in the streets of Caracas, in the city parks, on the slopes of the Ávila Mountain, or by the shores of the sea. In all, I voyaged at least six times to Venezuela, and only the last time, in 2012, did I come prepared with my tiny binoculars and a great big field guide.

By 2012 we were living in Indiana, and I had finally begun to do a little birding outside the confines of our yard. When we landed in Caracas I was ready (not really), I was eager (most definitely), and I was in way over my head (understatement of my birding life). I mean, just look at these two pages of tyrant flycatchers alone.

Still, I got out there and did my best, and in doing my best, I picked up a measly 25 species, Chestnut-fronted Macaw, Yellow-headed Caracara, and Blue-gray Tanager among the most memorable.

The reason we haven’t returned to Venezuela as a family since 2012 is because of the collapse of US-Venezuelan relations. I won’t get into the legal nitty gritty of why we can’t go back, but I do maintain the hope that relations will warm enough someday that we can travel there again. I’m somewhat confident, though far from certain, the four of us will one day board a plane to Caracas.

I am less confident we’ll travel to La Gran Sabana, as we did in December 2004, when Alex, her cousin Glen, his girlfriend, and I made our way into Venezuela’s interior, video camera in hand, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Alex’s father in 1981. That’s a whole story unto itself, and much more important than my petty birding regrets, but since this is my birding Substack, please spare me the space to mourn the birding I didn’t do in the jungles and grasslands near the Venezuelan/Brazilian border.

Me, with binoculars, not birding the Venezuelan Amazon.

The birds were there, but I only remember one—a toucan perched on a tree at the edge of the forest. I got a great look through Glen’s binoculars, but my memory of its field marks has faded, and there is no photo to help me ID it.

And now I find myself asking—does it matter? I saw that toucan. I was amazed by it. Birder or not, you don’t forget the first toucan you see in the wild. As a child of the US Midwest used to Northern Cardinals and Blue Jays and Black-capped Chickadees, seeing a toucan of any kind was a profound, unforgettable experience. Wisdom tells me to cherish that memory and be content. The moment was enough. Right?

Hell no. I want that toucan on my life list. I want all the birds I missed from that incredible trip on my life list. Not birding in Venezuela in 2004 was a catastrophic mistake, my biggest L, my Fail of all Fails, a great, greasy stain on my permanent record 🙂 🫠 💀

Arrepentimiento. Es el sonido de las alas de un colibrí, zumbando enternamente en mi cerebro.³

Featured Photo—Green Jay (Inca Type)

This marks the third time our photo albums have assuaged my regret and provided proof I maintained at least a middling interest in birds during my non-birding years. The Green Jay (Inca type) is a New World jay of the Andes Mountains with a range stretching from Venezuela to Bolivia. Brightly colored in blue, green, and yellow with a black bib, the bird is fairly unmistakable, and I think we can agree the blue pompom atop the bill adds even more fun to an already festive bird. Though it appears not entirely clear whether the Inca-type Green Jay and the Green Jay of Texas, Mexico, and Central America constitute a single species, the two were split in 2009 by the International Ornithological Congress. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology does not seem to agree, as eBird categorizes the Inca type as a subspecies of the Green Jay. For my part, I’m just happy to have unearthed this photo, taken atop the Ávila—the forested mountain/national park overlooking Caracas. I’m not sure I have an exact date for this sighting, so an eBird entry remains up in the air. For now I’ll content myself with the refreshed memory and a handwritten checkmark in my copy of Birds of Venezuela, which calls the bird Inca Jay.

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Keeping up Your Language Skills.

I’ve learned three foreign languages in my life, and I’m guilty of butchering all three. You’d think after all that study I’d be a pretty handy English, German, French, and Spanish polyglot, but in reality I am, as Michael Scott might say, just a glot.

That’s all for this week. Do you have any birding regrets? If willing, share them. Please. You’ll help me feel better.

Until next time, please do not not bird your ass off, especially if traveling somewhere you’re unlikely to visit again.

nwb

This post was human-generated. All photos by Nathaniel Bowler.

Special thanks to my translators—Dennis (German); Chantal (French); and Glen, Belen, and Alex (Spanish).

1. Regret. It sticks to me like dried bird shit.

2. Ah, regret. It’s like the beak of a gull, picking at my rotten carcass.

3. Regret. It’s the sound of a hummingbird’s wings, droning forever in my brain.