Watching the Birds Grow Up
Everything changes; the animals know it best
About a week ago, I went for a walk near the beach for the first time in what felt like forever. I try to make this a regular routine, but sometimes life just gets in the way.
The path I like to take gives me a few options: trail through the sand to get to the shore, take a right to wander through the marina, or keep walking straight until you’re all the way out on the pier, facing at a tattered, red lighthouse and the endless expanse of Lake Michigan.
I’ve gone each direction several times, and I can’t say I really have a favorite path. But in order to choose which one I’ll take on a given day, I’ll decide ahead of time what kinds of birds I want to see. Different species love each area of the waterfront for their own reasons.
Last week, I decided to walk along the pier because I wanted to spot some diving ducks on the open water. Cormorants — sleek, black birds with pointy yellow beaks — are a common sight, frequently slipping underwater to snatch fish. I also heard that the buffleheads migrated back for the winter and was hoping to catch sight of these fluffy little guys.
As I walked toward the water, I saw what looked like a dirty seagull preening on the shore. So, I looked through my binoculars to get a better look. To my surprise, the bird wasn’t a seagull at all.
I actually spotted a long-tailed duck — the second I’ve seen in my life. He looked like something you’d see in a painting, with perfectly smudged cheek patches and a mop of shaggy, grey feathers cascading down his back. Not to mention his impressively long tailfeathers.
It was hard to hold in my excitement. Not only was the bird beautiful, but I was pretty sure I’d seen him before. A younger version of him.
Last winter, my fiancé and I spent so much time trying to spot a younger, scraggly-looking long-tailed duck on the water. It was nearly impossible to catch sight of him through our binoculars since he moved so quickly and was almost always underwater. I remember my face and legs going numb from the wind (even with base layers on) as we tried to scan the water as long as we could in near zero-degree weather.
Finding the long-tailed duck was kind of a game for us every time we went bird watching last winter. We’d go to our usual spots along the lake and try to spot him among large groups of mallards, geese, and goldeneyes.
He always swam alone. As far as I was concerned, he was the only member of his species wintering on our part of the beach.
We even had a few interactions with other birders who asked if we’d seen the long-tailed duck, since they wanted help spotting him. The species is pretty rare in lower Wisconsin, from what I gather.
I was wondering if we’d get to see another long-tailed duck this winter. And to my surprise, a week ago, one was just sitting on the beach. He was preening like nobody was watching. I even got to see him swim into the lake and dive a few times, looking for food.
There’s a chance I’m wrong about this, but I have a feeling he’s the same duck we saw last winter — just grown up. It would make sense for him to migrate back to the same beach a year later. And he was all alone, just like last winter.
If I’m right, it took him less than a full year to transform from an ugly duckling to a gorgeous creature that looks like a piece of living art. I mean, the change is absolutely drastic. That’s part of the reason why I’m not 100% sure if he’s even the same duck!
But these changes do happen. That’s just nature. It’s part of life; a consequence of passing time.
The birds always remind me of how fast things change. In their relatively short lives, their bodies transform over and over again with age and seasons. At the start of spring, their breeding plumage grows in, and in a matter of weeks they’ll go from pairs to parents. Then once the first hint of fall chills the air, many will abandon the summer scenery for their winter homes, molting once again as they fly hundreds to thousands of miles to get there. And then the cycle repeats just a few months later.
I’m not always the best at acknowledging how much can change in a season, or even a year for that matter. But when I think back to who I was in December 2022, there were a lot of things going in my life that aren’t part of it anymore — and things that are part of it, even if I didn’t anticipate them. In many ways, I’m frequently molting like the birds, becoming something new for each season of life.
Projects that seemed like a matter of life and death last year are long past me. I’m no longer working at a job that I thought would be a constant in my life for at least another few years. My boyfriend is now my fiancé. And the place I now call home has become even more special to me, thanks to the people I’ve met and the things I’ve been able to do for my community.
Those are some of the big changes. The little ones, I can’t even put my finger on. Sometimes it makes me sad to think about all the mundane moments that led me to today that I can’t even remember. I’m not the best at documenting my own life. Sometimes I’m not even that good at experiencing it.
But whether I notice the changes or not, they’ll just keep happening. The seasons will change. The birds will keep transforming. And so will I.