The superlative title is spot on. According to a recent National Geographic Magazine article, the Biggest Week in American Birding (BWIAB) is the largest birding festival in the United States. “It attracts upward of 90,000 people, bringing in around $40 million to the local economy” centered around Oak Harbor, Ohio, dubbed (another legit superlative alert) the “Warbler Capital of the World.”
This time of year, there are lots of great places to glimpse the annual spring migration of (staggering number alert) 3.5 billion birds. Close to home for my wife and me, there is the Morton Arboretum, Wooded Island in Jackson Park and Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary, otherwise known as the “Magic Hedge.” But the southern rim of Lake Erie is a premier “migrant trap,” a stopover point for warblers and other migrating birds to rest and refuel before continuing their journey northward — with some birds crossing into and across Canada, through Alaska and across the Bering Strait into Siberia!
BWIAB is organized by the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, a small but mighty nonprofit education and research organization devoted to birds. The force of nature at the helm of (acronym alert) BSBO is Kimberly Kaufman who has expertly parlayed the popularity of the birding event into broad-based and active support — from the local chamber of commerce all the way up to Republican Governor Mike DeWine.
Those who register for the 10-day BWIAB are eligible to sign up for guided field trips and programs featuring a Who’s Who in the birding world. Last year, I had the honor as CEO of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of introducing Kenn Kaufman (Kimberly’s husband) for his program about Wild America — the epic, 100-day, 30,000-mile birding journey undertaken by Peterson and his British counterpart, James Fisher.
This year, as a retired “civilian,” I turned to Kenn Kaufman’s recent book, The Birds that Audubon Missed, to enrich my my birding adventures at BWIAB. Kenn includes a chapter on thrushes, helping us to understand how it is that Audubon — and many other early bird experts — had been flummoxed in their efforts to accurately and completely identify all five thrush species native to North America. Even today, with all our advanced guides and optics, it can be a challenge identifying some thrush species in the field.
My wife and tallied three of the five thrushes during this year’s BWIAB. The Wood Thrush is the easiest to ID by sight and song. The largest and most distinctly marked, its song was described by Audubon rival, Alexander Wilson: “He pipes his few but clear and musical notes in a kind of ecstasy…which strongly resembles the double-tonguing of a German flute, and sometimes the tinkling of a small bell…and with such charming effect as to soothe the tranquil mind, and to seem sweeter and mellower at each successive repetition.”
My wife and I may have seen the Swainson’s Thrush and the Gray-cheeked Thrush, but overlooked them as Audubon and other have. But we saw many Veerys along the forested paths at several locations. I’m also pretty sure I caught a glimpse of the aptly-named Hermit Thrush — a particular favorite of mine is the Hermit Thrush, bringing to mind Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.
Song of the bleeding throat,
Death’s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing thou would’st surely die.)
For some, not being able to tick off all five thrush species — along with all 50+ species of warblers — would have been a disappointment. My wife and I are not that kind of birder. We both keep our modest lists of the birds we’ve seen — at BWIAB, in our favorite nature preserves and in our backyard. But mostly, birding affords the simple pleasures of more deeply connecting us to nature and to each other.
