The Kindness of Strangers

When I began to study Evening Grosbeaks, three years ago, my adviser and I talked a great deal about how to go about studying these birds.  He, and most of the rest of the members of his lab, study the Cardueline Finches which is a group that contains such birds as the House Finch, siskins, goldfinches, redpolls, and crossbills in addition to the Evening Grosbeak.  Most of these birds are more or less nomadic which means they do not follow a standard migratory pattern.  Many birds have a breeding area and a non-breeding area, and they migrate back and forth between these places each year.  Not so for the Carduelines.  Instead, Cardueline Finches seem to follow food sources wherever they pop up.  Big groups of these birds will settle in to an area of forest where the coniferous tree are having an especially good cone crop.  They will stay and breed there for a while, but then pick up and leave when the food starts to run out.  This means that it is very hard to predict where groups of these birds will be at any given moment which makes then quite challenging to study!  My adviser explained his strategy to me which he has used with success.  It basically involves a great deal of time wandering about in the mountains hoping to cross paths with a flock.  I was working on a Master’s degree, then, and did not have enough time to devote to this kind of hopeful wandering if I was going to finish my degree on schedule.  But I knew something that no one else in the lab seemed to know: I knew birders!

Since I have been one all my life, I knew that there were birders out there who were very dedicated in in keeping their feeders filled with seed.  I knew that there were birders out there who kept extensive records of what came to their yards or what could be found in the areas around their homes.  I knew that there were birders out there who shared this information on list-serves and in chat rooms, and on birding hotlines.  And I hoped that there were birders out there who would be willing to met me come to their yards, and work there.  So, I threw myself on the kindness of strangers and started asking around.  I put my name on every list I could find.  I asked friends to pass my email address around to their friends.  I walked into random nature shops and asked if I could leave my contact information on billboards.  I did everything I could think of to get information on where Evening Grosbeaks were, and who’s feeders they were visiting; and responses started coming in!  I have gotten a ton of information on where these birds show up.  I have also been shown amazing hospitality by birders.  After figuring out where the birds were, I asked to go one step further.  I was hoping to be able to come to where the birds already were, and that meant visiting with birders who were willing to let me visit.  I have had the incredibly good fortune to find birders in three states who were willing to open their doors to me and my wife and let us come and spend some time in their backyards as I studied the birds there.  Some have let us camp in their back yards, others have given us a hot meal on a cold day, a few have even wanted to lend a hand with my work!  The kindness of strangers has been incredibly kind, indeed.

Even beyond their generosity, these birders have reminded me of how much value birders can be to ornithologists.  My master’s thesis would not have been possible without birders who were willing to help me out, and I will be continuing to rely on their generosity, and the generosity of others, as I pursue my Ph.D.  I would strongly suggest that other ornithologists think about ways of tapping into this amazing network of information and wonderful people, and I would also ask birders to think about letting a scientist into your yards.  By doing as simple a thing as putting up a bird feeder, anyone can make a big contribution to the study of birds, and want to thank all those who do.