whats your "spark" bird? (1 Viewer)

hello everyone! :hi: I was just interested in whats ya'lls "Spark" bird! for me it would be a painted bunting. feel free to share yours! o BTW if you do not know what a spark bird is,it is the bird that started your journey as a birder.

Water Rail for me.

Pileated Woodpecker

both of those are some cool birds!

Elegant Trogan

Male Blackcap when I was about 11, had only ever seen one in my 'Ladybird' book and was exhilarated to find one myself in the local wood.

Jeez, many for me. I suppose one of the earliest memories (less than 10yo) is of seeing Raptors soaring way up in the countryside sky and wondering what they were .... ?

There's a few others from out in the country when we used to go and see the grandparents on holidays - Galahs, and the Magpies that would attack us on our pushbikes.

Back home in our garden - it would have been the Kookaburras, Gang gang Cockatoos, and Crimson Rosellas.

In that same garden, I also started to photograph Eastern Spinebills, Rainbow Lorikeets, and myriads of little Honeyeaters and Geewhizzits that would come to visit.

Out in the country, my earliest efforts at providing hardwood nesting hollows were for Eastern Rosellas, and Red-rumped Parrots, as well as various Microbats, Owlet-Nightjars, and Owls.

I also tried to help the little Welcome Swallows with nesting ledges in better spots than under 50°C + tin roofed verandahs.

I also developed a love of watching and studying all sorts of Raptors that would live on/visit the property. In the Himalayas seeing Lammergeiers the size of Cessna airplanes glide by is a memory that will live on, as will seeing a big female Wedge-tailed Eagle levitate over me at a range of all of 20ft !




Chosun :gh:

Mmmm.... well I always had a general interest in nature and was lucky enough to have a few boyfriends who were interested in birds particularly. By chance I came across an old notebook the other day where I see I started day listing in 1975. Nothing rare, just what I saw (and could ID) when I was out in the hills.

I did go on a sort of 'twitch' in the spring of 1978 I think, when the Osprey returned to Loch of the Lowes. So that was really the spark for me to take birdwatching to a higher level.

all of those are very cool birding experiences and birds! thank ya'll for sharing! o

Always took an interest in the birds in the garden and around the local countryside but I think what got me really started taking it seriously as a hobby was watching spotted flycatchers launching themselves from a fence in the local park when I was about 12. I just thought their behaviour was fascinating the way they did their aerobatics then returned to the same spot on the fence. I had never really seen anything like that before and it made me realise that there was a whole world of different behaviours to study.

Sadly there no flycatchers to be seen around these parts anymore but they were a common sight back in the seventies.

Way back at primary school, I guess when I was about nine or ten, we had to do a project on birds and I really enjoyed doing mine on Heron, or Grey Heron as we have to call it now.
Up to then I had not really had an interest, so that was the 'spark'.
Then I saw a Waxwing from my bedroom window using a small telescope I had been given for astronomy, and that really got me going. Never looked back in 55 years.

Steve

nice ones! oo sorry to hear about the flycatchers.:-C