Yesterday, my husband called me a birdbrain. He really meant that I always have birds on the brain, which is true. 2021 has been the year of birds for me. It all started last summer when we moved into our new house. Cardinals nested in one of the small trees in my backyard, and I became obsessed. I watched them closely throughout the whole process. Honestly, I’ve never really lived somewhere with a lot of trees before. My current neighborhood is a lot greener than all of my former homes.
So I watched my cardinals and at the beginning of this year (2021), I hung up a bird feeder. I started to notice different birds and about halfway through January, I decided that one of my goals for this year was going to be to learn about birds and identify as many different species as possible. I downloaded the Merlin bird identification app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and went to work.
Everywhere I have gone for the past four months, I look for birds. I pay greater attention to all of the birds that live around us every day. I use my app to identify the birds and read about them. I’m keeping a running list of birds that I have seen in 2021. We are four months in and I have already identified 27 different birds! Here is my list, so far, in the order that I first spotted them:
- Northern cardinals
- Northern mockingbirds
- Song sparrows
- American robins
- Carolina chickadees
- Cedar waxwings
- Great blue herons
- Double crested cormorants
- Mourning doves
- Canada geese
- European starlings
- Muscovy ducks
- Mallard ducks
- Eastern bluebirds
- American crows
- House sparrows
- Blue jays
- Snow geese
- Great egrets
- American coots
- Eastern kingbirds
- Red winged blackbirds
- Brown pelicans
- Rock pigeons
- Gray catbirds
- House finches
- Mississippi kites
That’s a lot of birds! And to further solidify my crazy bird lady self, I have organized any pictures I take of them into folders on my computer. Granted, it is hard to get good pictures of birds, so many are blurry or far away, but I’m only counting birds on my list if I can at least get some sort of picture to aid me in identification. It’s possible that I have a mis-identification or two, as I’m no expert. But I think most of them are spot on.




The Muscovy duck did not show up right away in my app, because it is considered a domesticated duck and not wild. I had to google duck with a red, warty face to learn more about these guys!



Cardinals are the original bird that got me obsessed. Yesterday, I found out that I had a new nest in my yard! I took a picture of the cute, fluffy baby. Today, he left the nest and has been hopping all around with his parents learning to fly. There are still two more in the nest.
Baby in the nest Baby on the ground Baby with his parents
Male cardinal Female cardinal
So now you know my deep, dark secret. I’m a crazy bird lady. And I love it.