Introduction
In the spring of 2020, during the global pandemic, Americans abruptly discovered bird-watching. People who had never paid much attention to the birds in their neighborhoods and community parks began ordering birding books or using identification apps on their phones. They discovered that the mass of flying beings around them, heretofore composed mostly of small brown birds, medium-sized brown birds, and a handful of iconic and easy-to-identify species like robins and cardinals, was actually an incredibly diverse, varied, and glorious cornucopia of feathered life, with particular habits, habitats, and behaviors.
Going on walks in my neighborhood, I dodged people, trying to maintain social distance. My neighbor’s eyes were fixed on the turkey vulture soaring overhead, the house finch pecking the ground, or the goldfinch balanced on the husk of last year’s sunflower.