Every so often when I am out birding or walking around, something catches my eye that necessitates a double take. Whether it is something that seems interesting or a sight that confuses me. More often than not, unfortunately, I am deceived by my peripheral vision and that interesting bird or animal was a bag or lawn ornament. The times when I get excited in that split second are the times in which I feel the most silly – however it almost always leads to a good laugh about the ridiculousness of it all.
There have been many times in which I thought I stumbled on something rare or usual for an area. Obviously, I can blame this on inexperience, naivety, or just excitement in the field thinking that I just stumbled on something great. This past weekend, I was birding at Rose Park in Billings during a morning snowfall hoping to see what birds were around hanging out in the snow. While there were not many birds around at the time, the robins, juncos, and crows were all having a ball. A new Barn Swallow habitat was just installed in Rose Park as an Eagle Scout project with the help of the Yellowstone Valley Audubon Society. While the Barn Swallows are still a bit away from calling the shelter home, it is exciting to see public parks investing in ways for folks to see more birds and help the swallows nest.
I was about 100 feet away from the Barn Swallow shelter when I noticed something perched on top. The snow was coming down pretty well at that point and my binoculars were not doing much to help distinguish what exactly I was looking at. As I got closer all I could make out was something a little smaller than a robin moving side to side. I took a few photos with my camera hoping that I would be able to zoom in later in case the bird flew away. As I got closer, at this point probably 50 or so feet, I could make out some dark hues with a good bit of orange on the face and body. At this point, I started to get excited, either something happened to get to Montana a bit earlier for the season or we might have something fun on our hands. My mind immediately goes to some type of Oriole or maybe some other mid-sized bird that I could not picture at the moment.
About 20 feet away from the shelter I could still not make out exactly what this bird was. The color was coming into more detail now and it seemed as if we were making some meaningful eye contact. It is important to know that the snow was still coming down pretty well at this point. Its body was a mix of blue and orange with a beautiful ring of blue going straight through the orange on its neck. Excitement is at an all-time high here and I take a few more photos. It is within 10 feet that I get the first good look at this bird.
Immediately that rush of adrenaline and enthusiasm turns into laughter and embarrassment. For over 100 feet and a solid few minutes (not to mention that I fell twice trying to be a bit sneaky around the playground equipment as if to not scare away my friend at that point) I was stalking a lawn ornament of a Barn Swallow put up there to entice the Barn Swallows in when they arrive. Honestly, I should have put two and two together when we had our meaningful eye contact for around 30 seconds and the fact that it was just hanging out in the snow – but here we are.
Times like these are what make birding and getting outdoors fun, even if it did humble me pretty dramatically. I’m glad that I can still get that excitement and the rush for possibly seeing a new or rarer bird in my local park. I wish I could be able to say confidently that this will be the only time that this is going to happen but if I had to bet it’s going to happen again within a few weeks – possibly the same ornamental bird. I want to get dragged into that blind and dumb excitement because that is what makes this so much fun.
While that shelter Barn Swallow ornament was not exactly what I hoped it would be. It did do its job of being something enticing to check out. However, I was the one who was fooled and not the Barn Swallows (yet).
