I would definitely have to say shorebirds as the group I throw up my hands in trying to identify. From dunlin and sanderlings to the many different plovers I can get obsessed with looking for small identifying details. I recently spent some time at Summer Lake in central Oregon and had to include willets and curlew, dowitchers and snipe on my list of “what are they” sightings.
Along this same line of thinking I wrote last year about how often I catch myself saying “it’s only a sparrow or only a robin”. I think this is how we become desensitized and I compared it in a post to school shootings and how we dismiss the absolute horror because we see/hear of them so frequently. It may be a stretch to compare the two but it helped me understand what happens when we see something so frequently. It loses depth and impact and I am determined not to let that happen in my world.
I would definitely have to say shorebirds as the group I throw up my hands in trying to identify. From dunlin and sanderlings to the many different plovers I can get obsessed with looking for small identifying details. I recently spent some time at Summer Lake in central Oregon and had to include willets and curlew, dowitchers and snipe on my list of “what are they” sightings.
Along this same line of thinking I wrote last year about how often I catch myself saying “it’s only a sparrow or only a robin”. I think this is how we become desensitized and I compared it in a post to school shootings and how we dismiss the absolute horror because we see/hear of them so frequently. It may be a stretch to compare the two but it helped me understand what happens when we see something so frequently. It loses depth and impact and I am determined not to let that happen in my world.