“What Was That?”

By Kyle Huffman

KJ was introduced to birding as a child. His grandmother, a keeper of Audubon Society Field Guides, feeders, and traveler for birds, introduced him at a young age to the joys of watching birds. The habit never really stuck around, though, that was until he was in his late 20s, and a migrating visitor dropped by his backyard.

I can still remember the flash of red across the window and coming to a rest in my backyard. It was late September of 2024, and like most Sunday mornings, I was reading while listening to my favorite jazz station prior to attending church. The curtains covering the large glass sliding door to our backyard were pulled open, allowing the sun to radiate in. We had planted our usual fall garden a month before and enjoyed the company of bees as well as our resident hummingbird under the shade of the large tree taking up most of our modest backyard. I had watered the pumpkin vines that morning and, in doing so, left a small pool of water standing in the garden bed.

Unbeknownst to me, a bright red bird of some kind decided to drop by for a drink and a quick bath. As the flash of red came across our sliding glass door, I immediately wondered out loud to not only myself but to my wife sitting on the couch in our living room, “What was that?” Making my way to the door, I looked out to see this visitor at the pool of water I had left in the garden. The red was so brilliantly bright that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My wife asked me, “What is it?” I told her to come look as I went quickly to grab a pair of binoculars. Returning to the sliding glass door where my wife had migrated to, I held the binoculars up to my face and stared with intent. My heart leapt out of my chest as I couldn’t believe this beautiful bird was in my backyard!

After staring in awe for a few seconds, a curious question popped into my head, “What kind of bird is that?” Seconds later, my wife spoke out loud the exact same question. “No idea” was my response. The two of us were staring in awe at this beautiful visitor to our backyard for what seemed like several minutes, but was, in all reality, no more than 45 seconds or so. Like a lightbulb, the thought crossed my mind, “Use the binoculars and your phone to take a picture”. Without a camera in our house, this was the easiest way to snap a photo of our visitor. Pulling out my phone from my pocket, I held the camera up to the binoculars and quickly snapped a couple of very wobbly but viewable photos.

Not 20 seconds after that photo, the bird disappeared out of view into our neighbor’s tree. Now, there may be some of you that whom the name of this bird came to you pretty easily. But for me at the time, I had no idea what a Summer Tanager even was, let alone a tanager or a songbird for that matter. With no field guides in my house either, I jumped on Google to try and figure out how to identify this bird. The very first suggestion to pop up was Merlin Bird ID. With a quick download of an app, I followed the step-by-step instructions, plugging in the photo to their software, and voila, the name Summer Tanager came across my screen. Thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and their fantastic software, I quickly devoured a whole bunch of information.

Now, why do I bring this story up? All of us at some point can look back in our lives to a moment when we noticed a bird that sparked that interest, and plunged us deeply into our habit and love of birds we have now. Maybe it was something that appeared in your backyard, or at a park, or a thousand other possibilities. Hopefully, you hold onto that memory fondly and are even relishing in it at this very moment. Though my grandmother loved birds, read books on them, pointed them out, had feeders up at her house, and took me birding with her, none of it stuck around as an interest, hobby, or a love. It definitely set the foundation, though, for that Sunday morning in late September, a day when my interest peaked by an unexpected visit from a Summer Tanager. After that, the rest is history. The field guides, subscriptions to websites, Audubon Society signups, bird outings, photography, writing this article, and more all followed and turned a moment into one of my favorite hobbies. A day I look back on and give thanks for the opportunity that led me to where I am now.