For the Love of Birds

There are hard truths to accept when you live a nomadic life chasing birds.  I've been doing this for four years now and it doesn't get any easier saying good-bye.  You meet good people and make friends.  They touch your life and inspire you.  Soon a family is born and you wonder how it is you ever lived without them. 

Camping in cars, girl-talk, pee-in-your-pants-hilarious jokes, jumping-upanddown-concerts, big spaghetti dinners, raging week-end parties, followed by large, greasy breakfasts, the occasional hangover.  And birds.  Always the birds.  They are the glue that holds us together.  They are the reason we are all here. 

The field season quickly draws to it's inevitable end and I can almost hear the prickling tear of Velcro as we all go our separate ways, in search of new opportunities, to distant corners of the globe.  The established routine of work and play is disturbed and I wake once more in my old room, in my old house, in my hometown.  It is quiet.  I never have to wonder what that tightness is inside my chest.  I know the feeling all too well.  It is loss.  But the days they pass, slowly.  You fall into a new routine and continue.  There is nothing else to do but continue.  Apply for new jobs, consider grad school, alter your path or perhaps try your hand at something new. 

In the meantime I grab my binoculars and sling them around my neck.  I head out the door, wondering what birds I'll see today...

Photo: F.Rowland