Wings over the West: believe it or not, bird-watching is the hottest hobby in America. Here's Sunset's complete guide to its pleasures

Sunset, Nov, 2002 by Lora J. Finnegan, Jim McCausland

Many years ago, I walked down to our family's basement and discovered a bird book from the 1930s. It was tattered and dog-eared, and its margins bore notes in my mother's girlish hand. When I asked my mother about it, she explained that it dated from her childhood in Seattle. She told me it had been an important book because, for her, birding had been no idle hobby.

At age 12, my mother had been stricken with polio. She spent most of a year confined to bed. That year, the birds my mom could glimpse from her bedroom window were her link to the larger world. She doesn't claim that bird-watching sped up the healing process. But daily observations of chickadees and warblers taught her something: about patience, persistence, endurance. Those lessons rallied her--not only during the painful physical therapy that eventually helped her to walk again but throughout her life.

Inevitably, perhaps, I became passionate about birding too. The pastime has taken me all over the West. I've followed hummingbirds to Arizona's Sabino and Madera Canyons and watched them zip through the air, catching sunlight like gemstones. I've gazed at thousands of snow geese in the Sacramento Valley, their cries pealing as they circled like clouds of confetti.

I am not alone. The National Survey on Recreation and the Environment names bird-watching the fastest-growing outdoor recreation in the nation--an interest shared by 70 million Americans. It's easy to understand birding's popularity There are few sports that are as simple and inexpensive to begin--you need only a good bird book, binoculars, and walking shoes. You can find birds everywhere--even, quite literally, in your own backyard.

Bird-watching can change the way you think about the world. Almost by accident, studying birds has made me study the environment. I've taken note while some species skidded to the brink of extinction and watched others, like the brown pelican and bald eagle, be helped to recovery.

And birding can give you great joy, Scientists say that birds use song to attract a mate, mark territory, or signal danger. But I think there's another reason: wild birds sing because they own a sky so big, a heart so light, they simply must make music now and then.

Today, at age 80, Mom lives by a lake. She still looks at birds out the window--only now with a powerful spotting scope trained on the water. She and I are no longer the only birders in the family: the bird-watching bug has been passed around to my brother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece.

Still, Mom and I share our own special birding bond. We'll take any break in our schedules to squeeze in a trip together. Last winter, the promise of hundreds of bald eagles sent us flying north to the refuges of the Klamath Basin, along the California-Oregon border. We saw eagles everywhere: on fence posts and in grain fields, on mudflats and icy ponds. One magnificent bird sat astonishingly near--atop a telephone pole--while we eyed him, until at last he lifted his wings and soared off. It was the closest we'd ever been to a bald eagle and, perhaps, to each other.

TOP WESTERN BIRDING DESTINATIONS

Fantastic Five

* Northern California: Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges

* Southern California: Morro Bay/San Simeon coast

* Northwest: Skagit Valley, Washington

* Mountain: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Utah

* Southwest: Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico

You can't call yourself a birder until you've visited at least one--and ideally all--of these birding destinations, which rank among the best in the world.

* NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges

More than 400 bird species have been logged here, and peak waterfowl populations top 1 million. The six refuges of the Klamath Basin constitute one of the biggest freshwater wetlands west of the Mississippi and cover 190,000 acres of Northern California and Oregon. In some years the basin hosts 80 percent of the waterfowl migrating along the Pacific Flyway. In late January through February, the largest wintering population of bald eagles in the Lower 48 is here--300 to 900 birds.

WHERE: The visitor center is southwest of Klamath Falls, OR, at Tule Lake Refuge off State 161 in Tulelake, CA. CONTACT: (530) 667-2231 or www.klamathnwr.org.

* SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Morro Bay/San Simeon Coast

The San Luis Obispo County coast puts on a great show: near Morro Bay, watch for peregrine falcons darting off Morro Rock to nab smaller birds below, and scan the bay off the Embarcadero for brant (geese), grebes, loons, and scoters. At the 2001 Big Sit (an annual fixed-location international birding competition held each October), birders stationed at the nearby Elfin Forest counted more bird species than at any other participating location in the U.S.--106 species in 24 hours. Up the coast, from Cambria past San Simeon to Ragged Point, scout creeks, beaches, farm fields, and the ocean for black oystercatchers, brown pelicans, eagles, and a host of wintering hawks. Songbirds constantly flit through the chaparral here; pygmy nuthatches and woodpeckers frequent the native Monterey pine forest in Cambria. WHERE: The northern stretch is on State 1 from Cambria north to Ragged Point, where the road climbs to well above sea level. The Morro Bay stretch is accessible from the east and north sides; Elfin Forest is o n the southeastern side of the bay in Los Osos. CONTACT: Morro Coast Audubon Society: (805) 528-7182 (bird tape) or www.gliderpilots.org/audubon. Elfin Forest: (805) 528-0392.