Everyone should set a new goal from time to time, don’t you think?

One day in 2017, I stepped out the front door of my house to go to the mailbox. And the moment I came out from under the carport roof, I froze, almost in mid-stride. What is that incredible sound? Birds! Birds singing their hearts out!!

I have always been partial to birds, but for years I paid little attention to them because, as my hearing loss progressed, I could not hear them. Thus it was in 2017, when I finally got hearing aids (what was I waiting for?) that I began seriously looking for and photographing birds. Within days after that electrifying moment just outside the carport, I made my first birding foray into the countryside of East Ouachita Parish, Louisiana.

That day, I had no idea how lucky I was to have a Louisiana Shrike pose for me! What a fascinating bird, sometimes called the “miniature raptor.” See the hook on that beak? They are small, but they kill geckos and other small critters and hang them on barbed wire until they are cured enough to eat. Seriously.

So I soon joined Louisiana Ornithological Society, began going to the thrice-annual meetings when I could, birding with the far more experienced people there, and carrying my camera on the passenger seat of my car whenever I was driving through Louisiana countryside. That latter point turns out to be quite important.

At the fall meeting this year, I got interested in LOS’ “64 Club.” I had known about it, but always assumed it was beyond my skill and capacity, so paid little attention. To become a member, you must record bird sightings in all 64 parishes in the state of Louisiana. (For you out of state friends, parish = county.)

At this year’s meeting, I learned that a Master Naturalist friend is coming to the northeast corner of the state to bird, far from his home in Lafayette, because he needs birds from here for his 64 Club list. “I’ll go birding with you,” I said. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “I should do that, too.”

So I got to work going through my bird posts on iNaturalist and learned–to my great surprise–that I already have documented bird sightings in 30 of the 64 parishes. Woohoo! That’s where driving with my camera on the car seat beside me comes in. A number of these sightings came about just because I was driving through a parish on my way to somewhere, saw a hawk on a telephone pole, pulled over, and got a photo. As you can see on my 64 Club map above, 2018 and 2019 were particularly good years for doing that.

My goal is to qualify for the 64 Club patch at the October 2027 LOS meeting. The plan kicks off Nov. 6. I’ll get up early, head west to the Red River NWR where I’ll be able to bird in both Red River and DeSoto Parishes, then head southwest to North Sabine State Park to bird Sabine Parish, then head back east to Alexandria for a meeting.

Wish me luck! I’ll post the map each time I update it.