They call themselves birders, and they come in almost as many varieties as the avian species they find so fascinating. There are the most serious, the semi-scientific birders who take part in highly coordinated documentation research and tracking. Their favorite app is eBIRD, where every day’s (and night’s) sightings can be recorded and compared.
Then there are the photographers armed with lenses slightly smaller than a school bus attached to state-of-the-art camera gear capable of burst shooting and auto-focusing that can freeze every feather of an eagle in flight as well as the panicked gaze in the eyes of the salmon he has just captured….