Bimbo Seeks Birders

An Adult Adventure into Birding

I saw my first cedar waxwing last week. If you are not familiar, Cedar waxwings are taupe birds with feathers so silky-smooth, they look otherworldly. On top of that, they sport the cuntiest cat eye. Sephora employees are currently pining for their look.

I’ve been using the Merlin Bird ID app for a month now and the cedar waxwing is a pretty common bird to hear. Though common to hear, I had never witnessed its physical beauty until a week ago! After hearing their birdsong for weeks and scoping them out in trees with my binoculars, I finally saw one. In fact, I saw two. It was a pair of them, and they sat on a branch chirping for around thirty seconds which is a long time in bird time!

I’ve always loved animals since I was a kid but let’s be honest- I liked the ones with fur and four legs the most. Snakes to me were cool too and I had a gecko when I was five but I never had an interest in anything feathered. However, I’ve always loved cardinals because of their presence in southern folk mythology. And my two former cats were named after bird species…

Okay, so I have always liked birds a little! But I didn’t really pay attention to them until now.

Flashback. It’s 2024 and I have an idea to make a documentary about queer taxidermists and naturalists in Brooklyn. I start interviewing people whose work I am most drawn to.

First, I talk to Divya of Gotham Taxidermy about their journey in taxidermy and how their work relates to environmental preservation. It’s clear through our conversations and their taxidermy work that Divya is a big fan of birds! I take note.

Next, I talk to Sam Sam Graves who is a naturalist and educator. They also turn out to be a big fan of birds. In our interview, Sam Sam talks about the Wild Bird Fund and how volunteers track bird collusions during the spring and the fall in a project called Project Safe Flight. This is beautiful preservation work but I think- what’s this fascination with birds?

Both Sam Sam and Divya seem to like birds a lot and spend time thinking about them and admiring them. I was curious. What was so special about birds?

This question lingered as I went about my daily life. Then I started to notice. At first, I started to slow my pace whenever I was approaching a flock of pigeons on the sidewalk. Then I started to turn down the volume on my airpods so I could listen to the sounds they made. Finally, I started to stand still when I got close to them instead of walking past them. I thought maybe if I stared at them long enough, something would happen.

Sure enough, as I took the time to notice, their feathers began to dazzle in the sun. It was as if the whole color spectrum manifested on their bodies. Hues of greens, blues, purples, pinks! I immediately felt a warmness and a serenity watching them. How could I have not noticed their coloration until now?

Maybe Sam Sam and Divya were right about birds. Maybe they had tapped into something that only a few of us were willing to see. I wanted to know more.

The next logical step in my birding journey was to get binoculars. Buying a pair seemed expensive and confusing so I just waited for a pair to find me. During that summer, I went on a slew of awkward first dates. More on that later. But I got a free pair of binoculars out of one of them. A guy I went on a date with said I could have his extra pair and told me I could keep them even if we didn’t have a second date. So obviously I kept them and never saw him again.

The first thing I did with the binoculars was take them to Greenwood Cemetery to see the Monk Parakeets in their tower. Looking at them with the binoculars, they became more real to me. Now that I could see them up close, I could see how funny and full of personality they really were. But then, I began to ask myself questions like- is this birdwatching? Am I birding? What’s happening to me?

But I soon stopped asking those kinds of questions and started asking myself why I hadn’t noticed birds sooner?

I began to sign up for group birding excursions because I didn’t feel confident identifying birds outside of cardinals and pigeons. In the late summer of 2025, I went on my first one and we were taken to a giant old tree that housed a nest of tiny ruby-throated hummingbirds. I had never thought about hummingbirds having a nest let alone caring for young. All of us in the group craned our necks to spot the barely visible nest on a branch with our binoculars. For the first time ever, I watched two baby hummingbirds sit in a nest. They were practicing fluttering their wings in preparation for migration. Then the group leader announced he saw the mother on a branch near them. When I saw her, I realized it was the first time ever I saw a hummingbird sitting still! She was sitting on a nearby branch where she could keep an eye on the babies though they couldn’t see her. That’s such a human parenting move I thought. The lead instructor said they were due to fledge any day and I prayed for a safe and successful trip for them.

One day, I decided to bird by myself in Prospect park. I saw a heron immediately. With the binoculars I could now see herons camouflaging themselves in the tall cattails. I asked myself, were these birds here all along and had I just never really taken the time to search for them? Then I asked myself a bigger question: if I stopped to notice the birds everywhere I went, would I see something unexpected each time?

Now a year later, I believe there is natural beauty to be found everywhere. Even in big cities like New York! You don’t have to go somewhere rural and isolated to see natural beauty. There is plenty here, and in fact a lot of species live here because there are a lot of different food and shelter resources available. There are beautiful plants and animals here but as busy people- we usually miss them.

Today, birding is a preferable way of being in the world because it helps me to engage in the world I currently live in. To put it very simply. I love birding because anyone can do it at any time. Through listening to other people’s experiences, I understand not everyone has the chance to do it because just like everything else, class, race, disability, and gender affect people’s ability to navigate indoor and outdoor spaces.

Before, I thought bird watching was something unfriendly retirees did. That’s not really my crowd (unless they are paying me for my services). I also thought that birding was a white people activity. I am a white person but I try to be skeptical about getting involved in activities that I think are dominated by other white people. That kind of skew of demographic in a hobby can usually tell us something about it- like for example- I don’t know… that there is racism going on within it. But Sam Sam and Divya taught me about Black Birders Week and their ongoing efforts to make birding more inclusive. It was clear from the way Sam Sam and Divya talked about birding- it is an activity for everyone.

Though as a white person- I can’t ignore that there is racism that occurs in birding- as it occurs everywhere. There are two resources that I want to recommend for those who are interested in trying to practice anti-racism while practicing naturalism.

There is a book and podcast I want to recommend. The podcast is called always be birdin’ and Divya recommended it to me. The episode is a brief yet nuanced history of how colonization is foundational to natural science and a starting point for species identification, and later taxonomy. The book is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. The author is Christian Cooper and he experienced racial violence while birding in Central Park during the pandemic and it became a viral news story. These two resources are good places to start! But I’m going to continue to read and do my research!

Talking to Divya and Sam Sam signaled some sort of transformation.

I look back on my first conversation with Sam Sam and remember them saying, “it all starts with the birds.” After a year of being with birds, I think they meant that the care and love we feel for our environment can start with a small interest in birds. And then that interest just grows and expands into learning about other species, plants, dirt, bugs, etc. That’s been my experience too! In fact, later last summer, I signed up for an ecology walk at a park near my apartment. I found myself spending my Friday night learning about fireflies and bats in Prospect Park. It was amazing!

Sam Sam and Divya also taught me several grassroots led efforts to help the preservation of bird species- like Project Safe Flight. They also taught me about the Plover Project- community led effort to protect the nesting areas of the almost extinct Piping Plover on NYC beaches. Sam Sam also told me about dBird which is an effort to collect information on injured or dead birds. If you find a dead bird, you should report it to dBird. It’s sad to see one, but if you report it, it can help mitigate future preventable bird death. For me reporting it is like avenging its death in a small way. Though I know it’s not that simple. Also, filling out the form takes less than a minute to do so.

I now look at birding as an essential activity to maintain my sanity. As someone who works in s*x industry, there are lots of things I need to do to maintain my sanity. The work itself can be emotionally and physically stressful of course but usually the thing stressing me out is the stigma part of the job and how it shapes the way I have to live my life and navigate my relationships. Though I know logically what I do is normal, it’s hard to feel that way. Now when I am feeling down, I can stop the shame spiral and think about the coloring of an oriole. Or about how starlings have a complex language system. Or how grackles and black birds are different species. Birding allows me to get out of my head and find delight in a species that has been around for millions of years and has no concept of censorship or inflation or whorephobia.

Learning about birds has brought so much positivity in my life though there are downsides to everything. Caring about birds has made me more privy to the ways humans are continuing to create a hellscape for all creatures to live. I see the Trump administration rescinding endangered species protections. I see high rises going up on every other street corner. I see newly created AI facilities stealing clean water from marginalized communities for the sake of what exactly? But birding includes learning about all of these things. It’s just a fact. I can’t go around watching birds and ignore the fact that we are creating a more devastating environment for not just birds and other animals but for ourselves as well.

I am so grateful to Divya and Sam Sam. Filming this documentary has expanded my life in so many unexpected ways in the best way. Birding is just one of things to come out of it.

My hope is that people my age and younger try to do it. Even if just for a few minutes. To me, it’s not always about identifying bird species or logging them into a list. Those things can be cool but it’s more about stopping and looking to see what’s going on in our natural world- the world that we interact with daily though we don’t always take notice.

As an adult who has gotten into birding I realize that I still have lots of firsts to experience and what a wonderful feeling it is to be reminded that the world and my understanding of it is still very small. But now that I watch birds- I am finding my world is opening far more.

xoxo