It’s A Sin To Kill A Spark Bird

Birders are fond of talking about their “spark bird,” the bird or birding moment that hooked them into the passion of birding. Oddly enough, I remained sans spark bird for quite some time. That is, until a memory was triggered by opening an old photo album. 

A little back story: I grew up with nature in my soul. I’d like to say that, like so many others in the birding world, I started watching birds when I was 8 and was a keen observer and I only felt at home in the woods. But I didn’t have that luxury.  
My environment didn’t fully support my interest in, well, the environment. 

I grew up in a tiny bungalow plunked down on a postage stamp-sized lot in an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio (which is only now starting to recover as the favored butt of environment jokes). My parents weren’t outdoorsy, but we did have breakfast in the metropark a few times a year.

This being the case, my nature education heavily relied on Marlin Perkins’ dignified narratives on Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom which used to air at 7pm on Sunday nights (“It’s very important that I keep tension on this rope or Jim’s life will be in grave danger…. Whoops.”).  

Like most Americans, this was my first exposure to endangered species and the conservation movement (See a few classic clips here).  

I can still smell Breck shampoo in my newly-washed hair as I sat in my jammies and slippers at the foot of the couch (because Dad sprawled out above me). I can hear Mom gasp at the lion kills, laugh at the chimpanzees, and marvel at the crocodiles.

The only critters I had to marvel at included gray squirrels, American Robins, House Sparrows, and Blue Jays. I’m thinking hard, but the list probably ends there. 

That doesn’t stop what comes naturally, however. One makes do with what one has.

My keenest ‘nature exploration’ memory was when I sprawled out on my front lawn separating grass blades in search of four-leafed clovers. I seemed to find plenty back in the day, though such luck eludes me now. 

It’s hard to forget this memory, too:

On a warm, sunny day in late spring, when I was sixteen, I went outside. Hopping along my blacktop driveway was this baby bird, recently evicted from its nest.

It was a darling, fluffy, innocent little thing. It looked at me with googly eyes as if to say “Are you my mother?”

I’m sure I was all “Yes, I’ll be your mother, I’ll watch you, I’ll feed you, and I’ll make sure you grow up to be a strong, healthy, young robin someday.”

I think I added, “trust me” at the end of that sentence.

I rushed inside to get my mother’s Kodak Pocket Instamatic with 110 Film and loved him up with dozens of photographs.

For nearly an hour, he followed me around as I crouched down, all Marlin-style, to photograph and communicate with him. We loved, we bonded, we communed.

As it was approaching the dinner hour, I had to say goodbye, run inside, put on my khaki pants, polo, and brown Little Ceasar’s apron because my shift was about to start. There was dough to be rolled and sauce to be stirred.

I came out, climbed into my mom’s blue Chevy Impala, put it in reverse, and pulled out of the driveway being careful, of course, to look both ways for oncoming traffic as any meticulous new driver might do.

As my eyes glanced back at the blacktop before pulling away, I was suddenly reminded…

Gulp.

I stopped the car, climbed out, and snaked back to the driveway. 

And there he lay, the flat little pancake that was my first bird love…

Sigh…

It is no wonder, then, that the parting shot of my young robin friend looked like this: 

He wasn’t angry that I’d leave him. He ws angry that I’d exterminate him. And soon. 

Thus it must be considered that my ensuing immersion into biology, nature, and birds is a severe form of karmic payback for the sin of killing my spark bird.

I’d like to know: has anyone else murdered their spark bird? ‘Cuz I could really use some kinship in this department.

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Tagged as: bird watching, birding, spark bird