A BIRDING CONVERSION 
     
    
   
   
    
     BY EVELYN MEADER 
     
    
   
   
    
     For years a casual interest in our feathered friends has prompted me 
     
     to set up a feeder in winter. It is only since our move to an old 
     
     farmhouse in the fields outside Charlottetown that we have been bitten 
     
     by the binocular bearing, fieldguide leafing, eye’stripe, wing-bar, 
     
     undulating flight, tail bobbing all seasonal bird watching bug. 
     
    

    
     The transformation from sporadic observer to daily bird brain can be 
     
     credited to the booping bobolinks, and naturalist, Geoff Hogan. We 
     
     moved to the Kinlock Rd. homestead two years ago in April. The chaos, 
     
     clutter and confusion of uprooting a family and twenty years of 
     
     accumulated treasures, had barely . 
     
     subsided when flocks of "boop-ee, 
     
     boop—oo" computer burds turned our long A. 
     
     entry way into a video chirping arcade. 
     
     With their state of the art songs our 
     
     long lane became Bobolink Row (long or 
     
     short '0' pronunciation). At the same 
     
     time an ad for the course "Birdlife of 
     
     P.E.I. appeared in the Guardian. Our 
     
     bobolink buddies provided the 
     
     motivation and Geoff's fascinating fact- 
     
     filled lectures hooked me on this avian 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
       
     
       
     
    
   
   
    
     hobby. 
     
     Even curious Georgie, our P.E.I. spud g , 
     
     dog, has learned to wait quietly when I .“fi% 
     
     stop and peer through the binoculars at ‘ . 
     
     yet another of Nature's marvels. "Wow! Look at that, Georgie!" 
     
    
   
   
    
     "Aroooo," she prances and gives a little howl of approval. Georgie 
     
     also vigorously convinces the crows that they should leave when I feel 
     
     they've had their share of feeder offerings. She's a pseudo-ferocious 
     
     canine scarecrow. 
     
    

    
     The fields, the woods and the shore nearby keep my binoculars like a 
     
     battery, eVer ready. Swallows often energetically wheel and pirouette by 
     
     on their endless bug safari. By contrast, one sunny morning, we happened 
     
     upon a hundred bank swallows sunbathing on a warm black asphalt road in 
     
     an uninhabited subdivision across the road. We quietly left them to their 
     
     well deserved rest in road surface comfort. 
     
    

    
     Then there was the day I was focusing on a small sparrow on the 
     
     feeder. What species was it? Suddenly a giant filled the focus range - 
     
     my glasses overflowed with bird. It was a greater black backed gull 
     
     soaring in to use the feeder as an observation post. It was quite the 
     
     sighting, by gully! 
     
    

    
     The topper of my observation highlights, so far, occured on the 
     
     night of a full moon, close to Hallowe'en. I went out, with the dog, 
     
     to savour the silver landscape. As I stood drinking in the heavenly 
     
     scene a black shape winged quietly past the latern moon. Thoughts of 
     
     season inspired vampires shivered down my spine. As I stood in awe and 
     
     watched, the silent shape flew closer, made a complete circle around us 
     
     and disappeared into the distant shadows. An owl! The Great Pumpkin 
     
     himself couldn't have created a better atmosphere. I floated home with 
     
     nary a broomstick. , 
     
    

    
     In Southport about 25 little girls, who call me "Brown Owl", have 
     
     become pretty keen birders this spring. One of them, Megan Stubbs, 
     
     returned from Ont. recently, Just bursting. "Hi, Brown Owl. I visited 
     
     my grannie and I saw bluejays, crows, hawks and cardinals!" Even the 
     
     kids give a hoot over feathered findings. 
     
    

    
     As those screeching black—capped fellows, who inhabit the old bridge 
     
    
   
   
    
     piers, might say, "Ornithological life has definitely taken a "tern" for 
     
     the better at the Meaders. _3_