Blogging

A Year’s Worth of Bird Blogging

February 15, 2008 by Corey 8 Comments

Holy cow! I’ve been blogging for a year and a day! Last Valentine’s Day during a major snowstorm I sat down and created lovely dark and deep which I cruelly abandoned when Mike asked me to join 10,000 Birds. I even deleted my first blog post which was about how I wished I was outside birding but couldn’t be, because, well, a major snowstorm is a pretty big impediment to birding. So now my earliest surviving blog post is about why I bird and  my trigger bird. And now, one year later, here I am, still blogging about birds.

So what have I learned in a year of bird blogging? Not enough! I still find myself frantically writing blog posts when I have time and inspiration and feeling frustrated when I have neither. Perhaps the best thing I’ve learned in my year of bird blogging is how small the world is and how nice bird bloggers are. I climbed a mountain with bird bloggers, traveled to Europe and met up with a bird blogger, and even saw an extraordinary rarity with a bird blogger. Good times!

I also learned how much easier it is to keep up a blog when you have other bloggers to rely on when you are either too busy with life or just uninspired. Mike and Charlie are two good guys to blog with and I am so glad that I don’t feel like I have to write something every day, to say nothing of the technological problems that I would have no idea how to fix.  Thank, guys, for blogging with me!

Blogging is fun. It gives me a creative outlet, makes me think about birding in new ways, and makes me a better birder.  Maybe I’ll stick with it for another year…

Of course I’ll stick with it for another year (at least).  I wouldn’t give this up for a million dollars (but I might if it would add a Black-backed Woodpecker to last year’s Big Year List).  Having an audience to read my tales of birds seen and not seen, cool places visited, and challenges overcome is way too fun to give up!

Finally, I would like to evangelize a bit.  If you are a birder and you like to write or take pictures or both why not start your own bird blog? It is much easier to start one than you would think and it is up to you how much time and energy you want to put into it. By becoming a bird blogger you can share your birding experiences with the world at large. I have yet to meet a birder who doesn’t enjoy telling tales of sightings past. If you are hesitant to make that jump why not take a test drive, so to speak, and contribute to Welcome Wednesday?

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.