KODIAK -- We traveled to Bolivia in March, and while we were gone there were several uncommon visitors to Kodiak Island. We missed seeing an elephant seal at a beach right in town and trumpeter swans at Lake Rose Tead.
I heard about the swans in an e-mail from the instructor of a birding class offered through Kodiak College this spring. I'd signed up for the course in spite of my fear that I might not like standing for hours in the cold peering through binoculars. I wanted to learn to identify some of the 240 species of birds found on the Kodiak Archipelago.
When we planned our trip, I had thought I wouldn't miss any field trips, but there were impromptu bird watching hikes every weekend while we were gone. My disappointment that I wasn't in Kodiak to see the trumpeter swans made me hopeful that I might be a birder yet.
In Bolivia we saw hummingbirds bigger than a fist and the long, woven nests of oropendolas swinging from trees over the river. I didn't recognize the birdcalls, I was just glad to hear birds singing. Birding there was the opposite of my first field trip in Kodiak this spring.
On that morning, I wore long johns, a down jacket and winter boots, and I had to stop for ice cleats at the sporting goods store before I met the rest of my class. Crunching over the ice at Buskin Beach, we looked for fox sparrows, varied thrushes and golden-crowned sparrows under the bare alders. These, along with chickadees, crossbills and nuthatches are common backyard feeder birds in Kodiak.
I scanned the blue snow shadows, but when I finally figured out how to focus my folding binoculars, they had fogged up. Then I was ready -- and there were no birds left to see. I was learning that birding is a patient hobby.
Eventually someone spotted a sharp-shinned hawk hunting sparrows on a high ridge. Through a classmate's scope, I could see the gold of his eye as the wind ruffled his feathers. I was hooked. It was unexpectedly thrilling, watching him for those few minutes.
We spent much of the morning identifying sea birds: Steller's eiders, greater and lesser scaup, long tails, buffleheads, scoters, mergansers and gulls. Living on an island, I can guess which section of my shiny new Sibley Guide will get the most use.
I started my list. The life lists of birders read like a journal of places people have traveled, time they have spent outside, notes about weather and memories all arranged around a record of birds.
Yet in times of ecological change, birding may become more than just a pleasant hobby. The Christmas bird count is the longest running wildlife census in the world. It, and the backyard bird count each February, are examples of "citizen scientists" gathering international data about bird populations.
While we were away, the nation's first state of the birds report announced that a third of US bird species are threatened, declining or endangered because of habitat destruction, global climate change, pollution and invasive species. When I read about climate change and declining biodiversity, I wonder what one person can do in the face of such problems.
I think of the bank swallow, the smallest of the swallows, a little brown bird with a call like high-tension power lines. Bank swallows winter in South America with a summer range as far north as the Arctic.
When the northern winter ends, I doubt the bank swallow is overwhelmed by the great distance he will travel. He sets thin wings to the wind and heads for Alaska.
Sara Loewen lives, writes and watches birds in Kodiak.
SARA LOEWEN
AROUND ALASKA