I was up on a tall ladder this afternoon, stringing some garden lights between trees out behind Anchovy World Headquarters when I noticed a bird flitting about on a spruce branch about twenty feet away from me. I settled in to watch, and soon realized I was watching a female cardinal on her nest. You can just see the nest from the ground, but only if you know to look for it. I might not have seen it at all if I wasn’t hanging lights.
Now that I’ve been on a bird walk, I’m starting to watch for birds a lot more closely. While I was out working in our yard today, I saw robins, red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, some kind of finch, and what I believe was a gray catbird. On the birdwalk, our leader identified the song of the catbird but we didn’t see it. I heard the same song today, saw a gray bird with a longish tail, which looked a lot like pictures of a catbird I found on-line.
Har! As I’m typing this, I see a common grackle out in the front garden. I think I’m going to dig out my binoculars so I can look at the bird action way up in the trees.
27th Street 
Since working at Wildlife Rescue, I’ve also become interested in birds. Being up close to them, and caring for their specific needs every week has given me a new appreciation for them. I’ve just installed my first bird feeder (our cats stay inside), and I think I will start making notes as Salvelinas Fontinalis and his wife have done.
Time to pick up a bird book.
Once you start getting interested in more than 3 kinds of trout I very highly recommend that you start to keep a list for your own amazement. By the end of the year with only a moderate amount of paying attention you can fairly easily identify and list 100 mushroom species, 75 birds, 40 mammals and a huge number of wild plants. The thing with a list is that beyond keeping track of what you have seen you will sort of remember what is already listed and when you spot something that you think isnt there you have an instant opportunity to learn something. My wife and I kept a mammal/bird list one summer and we were totally amazed at the number of entries it had at the end of summer.
Oh I love birds! We had a nest of little sparrows fledge from a planter on our patio a few weeks ago. I happened to be outside when it happened. What a treat!
Catbird has a very unique call primarily because of its total lack of uniqueness. In a typical calling session it will often use a half dozen totally different phrases making himself sound like there are a half dozen different birds in the one tree. If you whistle back you can sometimes really get one going.