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Bird-Watching Puts You on Nature's 50-Yard Line
By Wendi Winters

Dotty Mumford doesn't walk for exercise outdoors anymore.

Three times a week, the former librarian is a loyal morning mall walker at Westfield Annapolis Mall, just down the road from her woodland home. "If I walk outdoors, I'm always stopping to listen to and look at the birds. I don't get any exercise that way with all the stop and go," she complains good-naturedly.

In case you can't tell, Mumford gets cheep-cheep thrills from listening to the sounds of the wild birds around her. She's a dedicated and deeply involved birder.

"I got involved in birding in the '60s because I was a Girl Scout leader for 14 years and had a Senior Girl Scout troop," she reminisces. Other troop leaders turned her on to their feathery avocation.

"I started going on field trips with the girls. We'd backpack on the Appalachian Trail and we'd each have a pair of small binoculars. As time went by," she laughs, "time on the trail shifted from hiking to birding. We'd still walk, but at a slower pace. There's no aerobic exercise in birding."

Over the years, she's learned to call herself a birder. She says, "Birders are serious bird-watchers."

She has been a member of the Anne Arundel Bird Club for all but about 6 of the past 46 years. Members of the club are also automatically enrolled in the Maryland Ornithological Society (MOS). An entire family can join for only $35 a year.

The society oversees nine bird sanctuaries in Maryland, including the 1570-acre Irish Grove, mostly beautiful marshlands, located in Somerset County, and the 8-acre Mandares Creek Sanctuary in Anne Arundel County.

There are also dozens of private sanctuaries open only to MOS members.

A Checklist of the Birds of Anne Arundel County booklet is available for free at most county parks and can be downloaded, also for free, from the MOS Web site. A great resource, it lists 261 birds, more than 50 types, along with the seasons of their appearance in the area and their most likely habitats.

Mumford is active in the sanctuary committee, charged with protecting the sanctuaries.

The club produces an annual program booklet listing dozens of events, trips, classes, and get-togethers.

Longtime couple Jan Sprinkel and Judy Graham enjoy bird-watching field trips locally or in exotic vacation spots in southeastern Arizona, Costa Rica, Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina, and Chincoteague. (Photo by Wendi Winters)

She's also a member of the American Birding Association, which provides a magazine and opportunities to attend conferences, seminars, and conventions. In addition, Mumford is enrolled in the American Bird Conservancy, which publishes American Bird magazine for its members.

For the past 20 years, she's volunteered at the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, and she does much of her bird-watching from the deck of the sanctuary's educational center.

Mumford suggests a beginning bird-watcher needs only a pair of binoculars and, eventually, a spotting scope that can be set up on a deck or level ground. She uses a pair of Bausch & Lomb binoculars, which are no longer made. Hers cost $300 20 years ago, but a good pair can be found for $350 to $450, and prices for all binoculars range from $250 to $1500.

Scopes and tripods can run from $300 to $5000, with $2000 a good median range. Her scope is an older model, a Kowa, and she's frankly envious of the capabilities of newer products.

"The trouble with Maryland is there's a lot of good places to go birding," she says, trying hard to look disappointed.

"The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the conservancy have places that require permission before you can go on their parklands, but there are plenty of places that are free and open to the public. In fact, anyplace with trees and fields is great. Your backyard is a good place to start, especially if you plant shrubbery and greens that attract birds like the chickadees and titmice. A feeder will attract goldfinches, house finches, cardinals, and the fairly common mockingbirds."

Some of her favorite spots in the region include Jug Bay Wetlands, Kinder Park, and Downs Park. Sandy Point State Park and Quiet Waters Park are good, but they charge entry fees.

Annapolis resident Dotty Mumford in her yard using her binoculars, scope, and tripod to watch birds. (Photo by Wendi Winters)

"There are not many shorebirds in the Annapolis area," she notes. "There's a lot of garden variety birds, but not too many woodland birds."

Her favorite time of year is May, "because that's when all kinds of things are migrating through. You never know what you're going to see. You'll get some neat surprises," she promises. "The warblers get pretty colors. In the fall, they're drab and the immatures (the young birds) are hard to identify."

She's traveled throughout the country to watch birds. Once, when she moved back to the East Coast after several years in the Northwest, she spent 6 months on the road, living in a trailer, the better to observe birds.

The most rare bird she ever spotted was a nearly extinct California condor.

Closer to home, she's discovered the patterns of the birds have subtly changed. "The spring migration isn't in my yard anymore," she says. Mumford lives on 6 acres, half of them wooded, near Rolling Knolls Elementary. "Migrating birds' numbers are dropping. I used to have a mourning warbler in my yard, now it's much more rare in Maryland. Now, they only breed in Garrett County in a couple locations." Still, she sees turkey vultures, Mississippi kits, and Connecticut warblers in her yard.

Kentucky warblers and Parula warblers don't breed in her yard anymore, either.

She notes it's taken years of keen observation for her to learn the differences among birds and to distinguish their distinctive sounds. Mumford recommends several books:

• Her No. 1 pick: The Sibley Guide to Birds, published by the National Audubon Society, by David Allen Sibley
• National Geographic's Field Guide to the Birds of North America, 4th Edition
• Birds of Eastern & Central North America, by Roger Tory Peterson
• Birds by Kevin Kaufman

Mumford's fellow birder Susan Ricciardi is a recently retired math professor at Anne Arundel Community College.

(Photo by Wendi Winters)

"I started bird-watching in '73, when I moved to Arnold from Annapolis. One day a Northern flicker flew into my yard," she recalls. "I thought it was a beautiful, exotic bird, but it turned out to be a common one. There are so many beautiful birds around, humans are blah by comparison."

She got serious in 1985 and became a co-compiler of the annual Annapolis-Gibson Island Christmas Count, part of a count conducted nationwide for 2 weeks during the holiday season. It's the 106th year since the count began, and Anne Arundel County birders have been in on the count for at least 50 years.

Birders recorded 112 species. The Canada goose, with 8187 counted, was fairly ubiquitous. Rarer were the single-digit counts for the wood duck, redhead, common loon, horned grebe, cormorant, black-crowned night heron, sharpshinned hawk, Cooper's hawk, accipiter, American kestrel, merlin, peregrine falcon, Virginia rail, barred owl, chipping sparrow, and more than a dozen others.

The reviled mute swan only clocked in with 77 counted.

"It (the count) gives a good idea of where birds are in early winter around the country," Ricciardi notes.

In the spring, her favorite watching spot is Ft. Smallwood Park, in the northern part of the county. From her perch, she watches as more than 10,000 hawks and vultures migrate north to breed. Another spot is Hart-Miller Island, located in the Middle River section of Baltimore, inaccessible save by boat. Irish Grove is another favorite.

"Bird-watching can get you close to nature," Ricciardi enthuses. "Once you start looking at birds, you see other things, like butterflies and toads. I'm still amazed that tiny hummingbirds can migrate thousands of miles every year."

Judy Graham of Eastport has watched birds all her life. Her partner, Jan Sprinkel, joined the fun "in '91 when we got together. My skills are at seeing and describing and Judi's skill is in identifying them," he chuckles.

"I have a yard list and a beach list," Graham says. I have 48 bird species marked that I've seen in my little urban backyard by looking out my windows." She counts for Cornell University every winter, for its program called "Project Feeder Watch."

The couple has different types of birdfeeders in their yard, from those designed solely to attract hummingbirds to troughs for a variety of winged critters. "There are catbirds that are so tame, they'll eat currants from Jan's hand," Graham marvels. "One arrives on April 24 every year and looks in the window for us."

There's a twitter in the brush and both pairs of eyes swivel in one direction. "There's a titmouse down on that stump," Sprinkel whispers. "Over there is a woodpecker."

When the backyard scene gets boring, the two head to Greenbury Point on the old Navy base on the Severn River. It has walking trails and is loaded with birds. They also love walking through Quiet Waters Park.

Father afield, they plan vacations around bird-watching. Chincoteague and Cape May at the right time are birders' heaven, they claim. They head to southeastern Arizona for tropical birds not seen elsewhere in the United States ("I saw nine hummingbird species," Graham exclaims.) Costa Rica is a destination, and recently the couple took a jaunt to Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina.

"It's the home of an endangered woodpecker," Graham explains.

There was another flutter in nearby leaves, and the couple pivoted as if on cue.

It was only a bluejay.

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Useful Web Sites

Maryland Ornithological Society

Anne Arundel Chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society Individual dues, $28 ; household dues, $35; sustaining member dues, $60; junior (under age 18) dues, $6. Membership in this chapter, as with all Maryland chapters, includes membership in the Maryland Ornithological Society (MOS) and subscriptions to MOS publications. A checklist of the Birds of Anne Arundel County in downloadable form is available on this Web site.

American Birding Association Membership is $45 for an individual, $52 for a joint membership.

Audubon Maryland-DC

Audubon Society of Central Maryland

Chesapeake Audubon Society

Southern Maryland Audubon Society

Audubon Science Christmas Bird Count

Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology