~ Anne Kilgannon
Maria Ruth opens the story of her deep dive into the lives of Pigeon Guillemots with laughter and joy. As she watches these oddly named birds make their entrance by plunging helter-skelter into the waters lapping a stretch of beach at the bottom of Puget Sound it could have been her first time witnessing their arrival or the one-hundredth; they never failed to capture her attention and her heart. She brings this fresh sense of wonder to every encounter through the years she has devoted to studying these fascinating creatures. She also brings a searching and ever-curious mind to probing their secrets and understanding their way of life and place in the world.
She has devoted over a dozen years to this pursuit, and in those years has helped forge a community of others who have joined her and a widespread group of other community scientists to document the life and needs of this charismatic sea bird. This work is ongoing and revelatory. These long stretches of bird watching, note taking, sustained patience and showing-up attendance is the foundation of real knowledge. And the birds are worth every minute; there is so much to know about their lives.
After introducing her deep commitment and dedicated involvement, Maria then challenges her readers by denying she is a birder. To me, this is not a throw-away statement but one that I find myself grappling with as I read the book and experience the undercurrent of identity-questioning and purpose for myself. What would it be to take up the study of one bird species, to follow them through their annual journey, to probe every rising question? I’m reminded of Roger Tory Peterson’s essay, “What Are You Really?” where he examines all the names by which “birders” identify themselves: “bird watcher, ornithologist, ornithophile, aviphile, bird lover, bird fancier, bird bander, birder, bird spotter, lister, ticker, twitcher,” and for himself: “bird artist and bird photographer.” Does that cover the ground, or in this case, a beach that abruptly rises in cliffs, punctuated here and there by small caves that shelter—in season—nesting Pigeon Guillemots? Do any of these titles describe Maria’s years of attention devoted to close observation of these remarkable birds, and her role in helping create a community dedicated, not to idly watching, as I do “my” chickadees as they converge at my feeder, but instead attentively, actively—yet not interferingly—observing, recording and noting everything, even if the “why” or sometimes the “how” of what is witnessed remains a mystery. Maria and her team are a model of patience, a depth of curiosity and abiding wonder, of waiting for understanding, for insight to arise from seasons of note taking. Not getting ahead of her own questions but doing the real work of investigation and observation, of letting the birds guide her study. Maybe a kind of “slow birding?”
As I read and followed along, I was struck by the notion that this account is akin to bringing “beginner’s mind” to the task; was this the approach that gives this work its power and freshness? I turned to Shunryu Suzuki, author of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” to explore this prickling of intuition. He explains: “Zen mind is one of those enigmatic phrases used by Zen teachers to make you notice yourself, to go beyond the words and wonder…and to answer that wondering with the deepest expression of your own nature…the mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It’s the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.” It’s an attitude that transforms “birding” into something much deeper, much more illuminating and even empathetical. It gets closer to seeing the world as a Pigeon Guillemot might, yet without putting a human gloss over it. It’s both humble and extraordinary.
We do indeed need a new word for this relationship. And as we engage with our new insights into bird life so thoroughly documented here, we need to do everything we can to make our human-saturated world home for these birds with their quirky nature and the very fetching flaming red feet—and any bird we love. They give us so much just being here among us. What kind of birder do we want to be? The kind that changes our lives, makes it bigger than we ever knew was possible.
