Going Wild—

A Local Naturalist’s View On Suburban Birding

By Andrew Gorosko

In their remarkable variety, birds provide humans with vivid glimpses into the intricate workings of nature, affording dynamic views of life in the wild, according to author Robert Winkler.

From his Huntingtown Road home, Mr Winkler, a nature writer who specializes in birds, has long studied things avian.

Since moving from Weston to Newtown in the mid 1990s, Mr Winkler has pondered nature while peering from his study’s window toward the antics of feeding white-breasted nuthatches, and also while casting seed across the lawn toward waterfowl swimming contentedly on a backyard pond along the Pootatuck River.

As a freelance journalist, Mr Winkler has written for publications including The New York Times, USA Today, The Los Angles Times, Reader’s Digest, and Travel & Leisure. In his new book, Going Wild: Adventures With Birds in the Suburban Wilderness, Mr Winkler explains through vignettes that beginning birders need not make treks to exotic locales to enjoy birds.

Appreciating birds simply involves being sensitive to nature while walking in the fields, woods, and shorelines near one’s home, according to Mr Winkler, who started birding in 1974, while living in Westport. He had formerly lived in Queens, N.Y.

Published by National Geographic, Mr Winkler’s first book, which contains only text, is intended as a literary complement National Geographic’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America and National Geographic Reference Atlas to the Birds of North America.

Among the book’s 14 chapters, Mr Winkler, 50, writes on the northern goshawk, a fierce bird of prey that is becoming increasingly common in suburbia. Another essay describes why a bird feeder is the suburban equivalent of the African water hole.

A sampling of Mr Winkler’s work is available on his website on the Internet: Robert Winkler- Nature Writing. The Internet address is: www.pages.cthome.net/rwinkler/.

Mr Winkler lists Newtown as his favorite town in Fairfield County. “It’s still got the open space. You can wander,” he said. The town retains a more relaxed social atmosphere than the communities of southern Fairfield County, where he formerly lived, he adds.

Newtown’s remaining undeveloped areas afford walkers many opportunities to view and study birds in the wild, Mr Winkler noted.

“Birds are a great reflection of nature’s diversity,” he said. Large in number, diverse in character, and ubiquitous, birds provide people with many opportunities for nature study on many levels, he said.

The world holds approximately 10,000 bird species, of which more than 900 species live in North America, north of Mexico.

Bird study provides one with a sense of natural variation, physical beauty, and varied animal behavior, Mr Winkler said. Newtown contains places to view bald eagles, ravens, and barred owls, he adds.

“If you’re not interacting with nature, you’re missing something really important in life,” Mr Winkler said.

To keep fresh his appreciation of the natural world, Mr Winkler walks extensively every other day in the 800-acre Upper Paugussett State Forest, on the western shore of the Housatonic River. Although the upper section of the state forest is a relatively compact 800 acres, it provides walkers with a wide range of terrain. The area contains riverine shoreline, open areas, steep slopes, and densely forested sections.

Such local undeveloped areas provide a “great sense of isolation,” Mr Winkler said. “I study it. It’s matter of learning,” he said.

“It sure helps to go into the woods,” he said. What makes Newtown a livable place is the degree to which it retains it “unpeopled places,” he said.

Birds have acute senses and possess a level of understanding that humans do not, Mr Winkler noted.

“Birds make me glad to be alive,” he added.

“Life is tough for birds. Life is tough for people. We’re all in it together. And that’s an inspiration for me,” Mr Winkler said.

Birding operates on many levels, he said. There are birders who know the many details about the species that they are studying. And there are people who simply feed birds, and enjoy doing so, he added.

“There’s no ‘right way’ to do this,” he said of birding.

Of continuing development, Mr Winkler said, “We take too lightly the idea of knocking down trees, leveling places, and putting up houses.”

“Living in humanity’s overpopulated, paved-over world — with all its rules, regulations, and traffic jams –– I think we envy the birds [in] their wild freedom. We want it for ourselves, and so we birders watch, listen to, identify, count, list, house, feed, and photograph birds,” he said.

“They [birds] are more beautiful and exotic than any extraterrestrial being Hollywood could concoct, and yet they are here, at our doorsteps, for us to enjoy,” according to Mr Winkler.