02 Jan What’s your spark bird?
If you have never heard the term “spark bird,” allow me to introduce you to a concept that has ignited the passion for birds. A ‘spark bird’ is that one bird whose presence captures your heart and opens your eyes to the wonder of birds and nature. It’s often the catalyst for a lifelong love of birding or a deeper connection to the natural world. I like to lovingly refer to this concept as the “the Gateway Bird” because it truly feels like you get sucked into a world that saps you of any willpower to turn your attention away from the wonderful world of birds.
I remember my spark bird. I was obsessed with animals from a very early age, begging my parents for cats, dogs, and horseback riding lessons. My favorite store in the new strip mall that went in near our house was called Pet Spoilers, and I dragged my mom in there to get some fish food one day. There was a large cage filled with beautiful budgerigars. The attraction was instant. Christmas was close, and much to my surprise, I did not get a budgie. Instead, my brother and I got hamsters… a far cry from the object of my obsession. So I did what any normal kid would do: I MADE a bird. I remember sewing together a little blue jay for myself, complete with wire perching feet (they fell out) and little balloons for air sacs (how did I even know about air sacs at nine years old?? I still couldn’t say). In my dreams, my blue jay and I lived the fantasy of Snow White or Cinderella, and I spent hours in my backyard watching the other feathered denizens of Texas, including my personal favorites, the Northern cardinals.
It wasn’t until a few years later I was finally allowed to have a budgie. As is common the story, one little bird soon turned into five, and I am sure my parents regretted their decision. But that little blue bird sparked an insatiable appetite for all knowledge avian. It turned into a volunteer summer job at the Houston Arboretum. A membership as the youngest member of the local bird club, the Parrot People. It became stacks of bird magazines with the covers falling off, dragged from grandparents’ houses to church pews. It eventually even led me to tree platforms in eastern Indonesia, negotiating the release of confiscated rare parrots from law enforcement and setting up first ever reintroduction sites.
If you look around closely, it’s not hard to see how much humans crave a connection to birds. Sure, there are people that are afraid of birds. But research also showed that during Covid lockdowns, birding and birdwatching increased in 115 countries, and search terms such as “bird feeder,” “bird food,” and “bird bath” saw significant increases. The 
birdwatching hobby adds $107.6 billion annually to the economy, with $12.6 billion of that spent specifically on bird food and feeders.
My social feed is filled with birds enjoying elaborate backyard feeder set ups, as well as slo-mo’s of people feeding nuts to wild jays, chickadees, and nuthatches straight from the hand. Some of my favorites are when a person dons a disguise and puts a plate of bird seed across their face or dangles hummingbird feeders from a hat and the birds come so close without knowing their is a human right there. Birds can fill your life with awe and wonder, which research shows is good for mental health. My daily sunset walks with my dogs are often spent quizzing myself with the bird songs I hear, and checking it against the Merlin ID app. I watch as the natural drama plays out between a red shouldered hawk and a scrub jay, or a new fledgling red tailed hawk is learning to soaring on his wobbly wings.
As someone who gets to work with birds closely each and every day, getting to be up close with birds is not a connection I take for granted. It is breathtaking not only to interact with birds, but to share that relationship with
others. These are relationships that take so much care and expertise to nurture and develop, and any mistake reveals itself instantly in the way we show up. There have been countless times that we have held a falconry class at our San Diego ranch in which there is a bird loving guest and less birdy partner. We never want to put the bird-nervous person in a state of fear, so we allow them as much space throughout the class as they want. Inevitably, by the time the falconry class is over, the person is a fan of birds. They have met their Gateway Bird, so to speak!
Speaking for myself, life is joyful when I look out my office window and watch a black phoebe swoop after flies. On my daily runs I revel as bird life wakes up all around me, stopping to watch a tiny kestrel mob a pair of ravens or the familiar calling of the Cooper’s hawk. Even the common LBJ – little brown job – keeps me entertained as they fill their beaks with bugs I never knew were there to bring back to a nest full of squeaky babies.
Birds need all of the help and support that they can get. It takes a whole lot of us taking imperfect action in the areas that we care about – organic gardening, art, animal training, biology, activism, volunteering, education, writing, engineering, donating, and more – to help turn this ship around for them. There is no one right way to help birds. Just do something, one little thing, to feed a connection to birds, and let it be yours.