Although I was exposed to the beauty of birds as a preschooler, consciously looking for them and trying to identify them, the building blocks of what has become known as “birdwatching,” were precluded in my formative years by heavy involvement in youth sports.  I consider May 29, 1974 the day I finally became a birdwatcher.

Deva and I were on a camping trip at Great Sand Dunes National Park in south central Colorado with our two young sons, ages eight and three at the time.  The Great Sand Dunes were the perfect storm of entertainment for two active boys—“glissading” down the steep dunes themselves, myriad hiking trails through the dunes and surrounding forest, deer in the campground at night, bear scat on the trace up to a waterfall and, running through everything, a river for wading and cooling off.  Did I mention we were there with our first (and last) four-wheel drive vehicle which allowed us access to legal off-road rambles along and through designated areas of the dunes themselves?

Or not.  On the second morning of our stay we awoke to find our vehicle would start but would not go.  I hiked a mile to the Visitors Center and arranged for a tow truck from the town of Alamosa, the closest civilization.  As you might suspect, for the boys a ride in the cab of a tow truck trumped the wonderful natural enticements of the dunes, so the three of us went to town with the ailing vehicle and left Deva to mind the camp.  It turned out she would have a much better day than her boys.

The diagnosis at the service center was bad news—a broken cam shaft in our just-out-of-warranty vehicle, but when we got back to camp in a rental car dinner was waiting, and Deva was brimming with excitement.  Our campsite had been visited by two different birds, both arrayed in plumage so spectacular that she had walked the mile to the Visitors Center and purchased our very first field guide.  And she had identified them—male Western Tanager and male Black-headed Grosbeak.  The next morning we observed in awe as both birds showed up again.  We had never seen anything with colors like that while growing up in the Midwest!

Fast forward to last week.  Fall migration has definitely begun.  On Thursday a male Western Tanager drank from our front yard water feature, and on Saturday a female Black-headed Grosbeak came to breakfast at our backyard seed feeder.  We have seven records on our yard list for the former species, eight records for the latter, but the surprise and awe never grow old.  Whenever one of us observes either of these two, uncommon, eye-candy migrants in the yard, the other immediately comes running.

And the memories flow.  The unique beauty and mystery of the dunes.  Youngsters enjoying the natural world.  Good times superseding bad.  Forty-nine cent/gallon gasoline.  The warp and weft of a birdwatcher’s life are always the birds--their color, their song, their habitats, their seasons--and the memories.  These memories frame the yet unfinished tapestry.