Life List

This morning, I was thrilled to add the red-tailed hawk to my life list. When I first saw her from a distance, I wanted her to be an eagle; she certainly screamed like one as she flew down from the top of her snag as I approached with the dog. Because I did not want to miss this chance to photograph her, I took the dog home, grabbed my camera, and headed back out into the woods. She was still there and still unapproachable. It wasn't until I downloaded the photos and found her in Sibley's that I knew who she was, however. Not an eagle, but a big and beautiful hawk.

Thinking about that term--life list--a term for the list most birders keep on which we record the first time we see a species alive in the field--made we wonder about all the birds I have never seen and all the birds I have seen and not been able to identify. How long will my life list grow to be? What small fraction of all the birds in the world will I ever see alive in the field? What difference does a list make in my life, anyway?

If I'm honest about it with you, my life list hasn't been physically updated in years . . . mostly just a checklist in my head and not very precise. I may tell you that bird is a lifer for me, then go home and find a photo I took a few years ago that I'd forgotten. Guess I'm just not a very serious birder. . .

Later, as I was reading a book by Pascal Mercer, something he wrote brought me back to that bird: "Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us--what happens with the rest?" I remember thinking like that, years ago: that each moment presented endless possibilities, all but one of which disappears, forever, as we decide which way to go. I could have continued with the dog and lost the bird, I could have changed my shirt for one with less color that would have made me more able to approach her ("be one with nature . . .") and gotten spectacular photos, or just stood still and watched her for as long as the dog would have allowed and never known for sure what she was. Whatever the possibilities were, they no longer exist.

I suppose it's nothing more than confluence of energy that makes us move from step to step, to see or not see that bird, to pick up the binoculars and camera and go or to sit at the computer and type, to pick up a book and read or to walk out into the field and observe . . . And I'm thankful, today, that I've made it into retirement with enough good health, energy, and resources to be able to have these moments, whether or not the bird ever makes it onto my life list.

Oh, one last thought: I hope the hawks in that woods (there's a beautiful pair of red-shoulders) don't get all the wonderful glass lizards and five-lined skinks that live out there!