As a young child, television shows like Wild Kratts, featuring two brothers exploring nature and teaching fun facts about animals, sparked my interest in biology. My thirst for knowledge about creatures and their interactions with each other continued to grow and found a home in Pokemon, a phase in my life during which I realized how much I can know about a single subject. At one point, I memorized over 1000 creatures and their abilities! What seemed like play was, in hindsight, early training for my eyes to notice and remember details.
As a teenager, my focus has now returned to the real world through birdwatching. Over the past year, I have accompanied experienced birdwatchers on guided birdwalks, recording the number, species, and behaviors of birds we see. Through these experiences, I have begun to learn how to recognize birds not just by sight but also by sound, motion, and behavior.
Birding is a calming practice for me, and helps to relieve stress as I quiet my mind and focus on only what bird is flying overhead. For just that moment, the only thing that matters is what I see through my binoculars: Beak shape, wingbar, head shape, eye ring, body size, and tail position. In a tree or on the ground? Flying overhead or building a nest? The incredible variety of and interplay between species in one place reminds me that nature endures, no matter what heavy news floods our newspapers and televisions.
I recently joined the Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas project with the hopes to learn more about the birds that live alongside us and also contribute to our understanding of how birds adapt in our shared habitat. In the future, I hope to identify birds with confidence and create my own tips for beginners, helping others learn to see what so often goes unnoticed.
The Curious Birder 
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