This is going to be the lamest form they’ve ever received. That was my thought as I participated in my first Great Backyard Bird Count several years ago. More than half an hour into my count I had found only a few tufted titmice and a lone mockingbird. Sure I was headed toward the water where I was sure to pick up a duck species or two, but I had expected to see more than titmice and mockingbirds by this point. I was, after all, doing a count. Didn’t the birds know this? Didn’t they want to be counted? Why weren’t they lining up?
Oh well, I thought, the people who run the Count want to know what I see, and if a few birds is all I see, then that’s what I’ll submit. Then I heard something overhead. It sounded very busy, but also very subtle. I was a much less experienced birder at the time, so I struggled to find the source of the noise, despite it happening all around me.
When I found it, I was amazed. It was a mixed flock of American robins and cedar waxwings. The waxwings were the more exciting species, but it was the robins that I still remember. Strength in numbers, as the saying goes. There were dozens upon dozens of robins. I couldn’t even count them there were so many of them surrounding me, stripping berries off the trees, vines, and bushes. Since I was doing a count, I gave it my best shot. Forty robins? No more like fifty. I finally settled on sixty, even though even that may have been low.
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