Everyone Should Have a Mother’s Day Birding Tradition Like This
Every Mother’s Day weekend, my mom and I join a small knot of birders on a country lane in West Virginia. We’ve come for our annual date with the Bobolinks.
We stand along the roadside, watching nesting pairs swoop over a shaggy field. The Bobolinks have flown more than 12,000 miles to meet us here, winging their way from southern South America. Males are reverse-tuxedoed and blond, like little James Bonds. They perch on fenceposts and sing for joy. Other seasonal visitors, including dozens of migrating warbler species, also alight in the West Virginia woods. Flashes of orange and yellow and blue brighten the leafing trees.