As I reflect back, there have been some notable birds in my life. My first one was actually the very first bird that I recorded seeing. I was on vacation with my grams in Ocean Park, Maine, and during our travels one day, we decided to stop at the Scarborough Marsh Nature Center. This had to be around 1974, I was twelve then. So we stop at the Nature Center, and we climb in to the observation deck, and there was a gentleman there looking at the birds with his spotting scope. And that bird, my first recorded bird, was a Little Blue Heron. It was so very special to see it for me, I’ll never forget that moment or that my grams introduced me to birding. It took me until 2000 to see another, and Mentor Lagoons in Northeast Ohio.

My second notable bird sighting occurred a year or so later when, on a nature walk with an adult friend through the conifer forest of Ocean Park, we spotted a Black-throated Green Warbler. This bird, I believe, was the very first warbler that I had ever seen. It was just hanging out in the trees about eye-level, and flitting about. To this day, one of my favorite warblers is a Black-throated Green. I wouldn’t see another one till 2000 as well.

Ocean Park and the southern Maine coast is where I cut my birding teeth. Two women in my life were major influencers with my birding. Both lived in Ocean Park. Mrs. Genevieve Webb was an active and early influence, and despite her being up there in age, she would pick me up at 5:30am and we would go all over birding. I saw such greats as Sandhill Crane, then a record in Maine, and a Marbled Godwit, along with many other shorebirds. Mrs. Edith Stephenson used to let me bird at her home, where in the backyard she had a small marsh. She would get Glossy Ibis, Snowy Egret, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, and various sandpipers like Lesser Yellowleg. Her and I would also go out birding early in the mornings, the fog thick heading to Scarborough Marsh or Pine Point, down through Biddeford. Mrs. S. also taught me much about photography in general, and bird photography in particular, as she had a wall in her home devoted framed bird photographs.

In 1976, as 14 year-old, I founded the Ocean Park Bird Club. It was my goal to establish a club not unlike the Nuttall Ornithological Club in Massachusetts, but it never really took off for one, and two, I “aged out” of my interest in birds at the time – 18, I was doing other things! But, in 1976, I did lead birding trips, mostly for seniors who registered, and the Club held I think three meetings. Also in 1976, in cooperation with several individuals, I gathered and published the very first “Birds of Ocean Park” Checklist, modeled on my friend Ted Wells’ plant and flora list. I think that the Ocean Park Library likely has a copy of that original issue.

Speaking of libraries, which I love, I would spend lots of time in the Ocean Park Library, reading up on birds and viewing their mounted bird collection. My favorite books that i always took out were “The Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States,” written by Edward Howe Forbush, my favorite birder next to Roger Tory Petersen. I once wrote to Mr. Petersen about Forbush, whom he did know, and he wrote back with some insight as I was trying to write a book about Forbush. All of my birding heroes were the late 1800-early 1900 major birders, including Nuttall, Forbush, William Brewster, Frank Chapman, Thomas Brewer, and other members of the A.O.U. as it grew into existence.