Birding

One of the podcasts I listen to on occasion is Radio Open Source, and one of their recent shows was on birding. The show was fascinating, and as you'd expect, I'm now fighting an urge to get a field guide and go out looking for birds.

A friend in Alabama had feeders setup in his backyard, and whenever I'd go over, there'd be a steady stream of cardinals coming around; very beautiful. We also had the occasional cardinal in our backyard at our last house in PA. Also, I was down in Delaware for work, and pointed out a mockingbird outside the office window, and had a coworker not believe that that's what it was, so we had to look it up online to verify; mockingbirds are so cool to watch fly, with the patterns that the marks on their wings make. So maybe I'm already a minor-league birder.

Anyway, I'm going to fight this urge, as I've got too many other projects and pursuits even now. I did realize, though, how neat the desire is to understand our world. I've gone through periods of passion over astronomy and geology, and thrill at just about any chance to understand life better.