Fear of Missing Out
This story is reposted with permission from the Slow Birding Community website hosted by Bird Diva Bridget Butler.
In early May, I was at the Biggest Week in American Birding in Oregon, Ohio. I had the pleasure of being a speaker and a guide as part of the festival gatherings and I visited the famous Magee Marsh Boardwalk. This is an amazing wetland managed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. It's also the site of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory. The accessible boardwalk is about 1 mile long, has multiple benches along the way, and spans a shrub-scrub wetland. And during spring migration, it is the place to be - for mainstream birding.
I've been told for many, many years that I should visit this festival, this spot in particular because it's a stopping point for birds as they reach the Great Lakes during migration. The birds stall out here before attempting to cross or circumvent Lake Erie. There are gobs of birds, of every kind, especially warblers. Over 150 species of songbirds and up to 36 species of warblers are possible. That means there are also gobs of birders.
At 7:30 am, pulling into the parking lot it was as if I was attending a rock concert or a sporting event. Multiple parking lots were filling rapidly. People were everywhere, scrambling to grab their gear and head to one end of the boardwalk or the other. The parking lot was alive with birdsong and massive flights of Blue Jays passing by overhead. Cars kept streaming in as I waited for my two birding buddies for the morning, Freya MacGregor of Access Birding and Holly Merker author of Ornitherapy and founder of the Mindful Birding Network.
I'll admit I was excited, there's a lot of hype about this spot and I was keen to get my eyes on a warbler or two - maybe even someone new. But I was also overwhelmed. The sheer number of people was daunting. The energy was palpable, folks intense on seeing it all and not missing out on one potential life bird or a perfect photograph. The cameras folks were hefting were magnificent and a bit imposing. I could feel the excitement of the crowd of birders, the promise of place, and the joy of seeing birds.
Yet this was in stark contrast to my slow birding practice so I knew I had to shift my intention for the morning. I was here for the experience, to pay attention to all the emotions that were likely to come, to be curious about those feelings, to be in the moment with the women who I was about to have the privilege to bird with, and to be open to whatever this experience had for me. And wow, did it have a lot.
Here's what stood out for me...
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) dominates much of the festival vibe and it's matched with Getting A Bird (GAB). There's a drive to see as many different species as possible and when you're crammed on a boardwalk with hundreds of other birders you feel it surrounding you. For the most part, people were lovely and helpful and super conversational, yet there was this underlying intensity to what many were there to do whether it was listing or photographing as many species as possible. Reports came in through Twitter of where different species were being seen in the moment at the numbered signposts. Canada and Mourning Warblers seemed to be the desired species the day I was there, and as a sighting happened you could feel the ripple of reports flow back through people along the boardwalk and then the rush of folks to get to that spot. The picture above in the banner is a spot where multiple species of warblers were feeding in the willows above including Nashville and Tennessee warblers.
People Watching Upstages the Birds. I've always been as curious about people's behavior as I've been about bird behavior, so I was really keying into what was happening around me. As much as FOMO or GAB dominated the scene, there was such beautiful camaraderie. Where else would you be able to be with hundreds of other people who shared the same love of birding?! Even when I worked with Audubon, I never experienced such numbers of birders all in one place. Sure, the crowd skewed mostly older and white and there were some people who were so singularly focused on GAB that they forgot simple birding etiquette, but again the thrum of belonging came through as folks helped each other with sighting birds and identifying them or just connecting with each other.
Sitting In Seeming Chaos. There was a point about an hour in, where I just pulled up and sat myself down on the top of the railing lining the boardwalk. We had been seeing a nice cluster of birds at this spot and the viewpoint from the railing gave me a different perspective. I sat and had great looks at all kinds of birds. There were bird magnets - the scraggly hawthorn in bloom and a towering willow tree; both full of insects. And as the people streamed by, the warblers streamed by. Some familiar, some new for the day, some not even warblers. It was as if both people and birds were on parade and I was the bystander just taking it all in. Freya and Holly had joined me, and we were all there perched on the railing delighting in both the birds and the conversations with the passing people. I think at one point Freya exclaimed we had been there for 45 minutes! That was proof to me that even in a deeply see-it-and-tick-it kind of setting, I could shift into a mindful state and slow bird anywhere. I can't wait to try this in other situations or places that feel chaotic to me.
All My Life Birders Were Women, Almost. A few days before the festival started, I realized I was going to get to meet two women birders who I've been working with virtually for a couple of years. I started calling them Life Birders, after the term "life-bird" which is used to describe the moment when an individual sees a bird for the first time. I was about to meet Freya MacGregor of Access Birding and Holly Merker founder of the Mindful Birding Network for the first time, in person, ever. And it didn't stop there, I met Rosemary Mosco, science writer, naturalist & cartoonist, Christina Baal artist & author, Erro Lehnert, California Condor Biologist, and Kimberly Kauffmann, Director of Black Swamp Bird Observatory. And yes, I'm name-dropping because that's how I elevate other women's roles in this amazing birding community. Again, here's another moment when I feel like the people of the festival took precedence over the birds. The connections that we make with each other as we experience birds are another incredible benefit of events like these and often we forget to celebrate them as much as the bird sightings. Oh, and I got to meet Nate Swick who interviewed me for the American Bird Association a few years back, he was a Life Birder too.
Miraculous In the Everyday. The most memorable bird moment for me of my entire time there, the one that sticks in my head and I can recall in vivid detail - has nothing to do with the birds I saw for the first time like the Red-headed Woodpecker or the Blue Grosbeak or the Lark Sparrow. It was with a Common Grackle on the Magee Marsh boardwalk. This bird was perched on a tree snag at eye level, not 10 feet from me, fully absorbing the spring sunshine, and posing like a top model on a catwalk. This bird was calling out to be noticed. Not vocalizing, but perching proudly and almost daring the gobs of people to stop and notice. Not many did. I did and my friends paused too. Other passing folks either huffed, "Oh, only a grackle..." and moved on, or only a few were caught up in the iridescent glory of Common Grackle. Those that stopped were captivated by the intensity of the bird's eyes and got lost in the inky black of the bird's body. As I stood smiling at the bird, I heard a man behind me say, "I don't think I've ever taken a picture of a grackle. But this one,..." and then the sound of a rapid succession of shots. Well played grackle, well played.
No FOMO here, I was able to tap into slow birding on the Magee Marsh Boardwalk too. ❤️
What do you think? Have you ever experienced Fear Of Missing Out? How does the phrase “get a bird” land for you? Have you ever felt overwhelmed when birding? I welcome your answers in the comment section below! Cheers ~ Bridget
