I thought every birder did this. Do we not all do this?
I chased some birds this winter, eventually finding my milestone 700th ABA Continental bird鈥攁 Common Gull in Eastport, Maine. Afterward, I shared some photos on Twitter of the handwritten notations I made in my Sibley field guide and got a lot of responses. Many birders said they do the same, and shared images of their well-loved books. Others had their own methods of keeping physical records.
But some responses caught me off guard: What an interesting idea to keep a physical copy of your life list in a field guide! Or, wow, I never thought of that! Or even: I鈥檇 never mark up a book like that.
These comments surprised me because writing down听lifers in my field guides is something I鈥檝e always done, and it's something that I鈥檝e always assumed all birders did since the exact moment I started birding. To those who don鈥檛 do this or have never heard of the practice, please listen: Do it. It鈥檚 the best.
I began birding the day I pulled a used Peterson field guide off a shelf in Hyde Brothers Booksellers in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In it, the previous owner had marked in pen next to each species the date and location they听had seen it. My lightbulb went off. The doors of my mind were kicked open. Field guides weren鈥檛 just a way to figure out what kind of bird you were seeing, they were they were the answer key to a game you played across the entire country. They were the directions to a lifelong scavenger hunt. 鈥淗ere are all the birds,鈥 it read, 鈥済o find them.鈥
I bought that old field guide, got to work crossing off the previous owner鈥檚 notes (sorry, karma), and began entering my own sightings. The first lifer I ever recorded was a pair of Northern Shovelers in a nearby cornfield pond. I was immediately hooked. I could keep a neat record of everything I had seen鈥攁nd everything else I needed to find鈥攔ight there in my book.
It was such a tidy solution that I began keeping records in all my field guides. For my first few years of birding, I鈥檇 buy a new guide every year and keep my year list听in them. I keep written records in every international guide I buy before an overseas birding trip, and I have entire shelves full of guides to places I haven鈥檛 visited yet, just waiting to be inked up. I keep track of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, Hawaiian reef fish, and butterflies in their respective guides. I recently wrote a guide to the birds of my home state and will copy my state list into it as soon as it鈥檚 published.
There鈥檚 no right or wrong way to do it. The variations I鈥檝e seen relate to how much information听people record.听I generally just find the species I saw and write the date and location of the sighting. Others will听mark听every plumage or sex听or subspecies. Some will jot quick notes: 鈥淰ery windy, with Jane.鈥 Maybe you just want to do a check mark. Whatever way you choose, it becomes yours.听
As caught off guard as I was by those on Twitter who never thought to write in their field guides, I was even more surprised by the folks听who were opposed to the practice entirely. Some people felt that books should be kept pristine, and not cluttered with personalizations. I simply don鈥檛 get the argument. After all, I paid for the book, and it still operates perfectly well as a field guide. I guess some people don鈥檛 put bumper stickers on their cars or get tattoos, either, but听to me, writing my sightings in a book is听an act of creation, not vandalism. I鈥檓 building a home for my memories.
I keep a record of everything in eBird too, of course, but that鈥檚 never been satisfying to me in the same way as a physical book. Turning each page immediately recalls the memory of where I was when I saw that bird, and any single page may be covered with memories written years apart. It鈥檚 an individualized keepsake for a hobby that operates mostly on experiences and memories, and it鈥檒l be with me as long as I live. And, depending on which used bookstore it ends up in, these sightings might inspire others well after I鈥檓 gone