Childhood memories shame this developing bird-watcher

If you have berry trees or bushes in your landscape, you've undoubtedly seen and heard these foraging birds. Cedar waxwings are a common site in the fall when they converge on ripe berries in huge groups. There are four in this photo. Another 25-50 were fluttering about or feeding in the adjacent trees.

Every sportsmen has done something that he or she is ashamed of.

And while I broke many game laws when I was y oung and foolish, nothing makes me more ashamed than the thought of all the song birds I killed when I was a kid.

My older brother and I were little woodsmen. We lived at the forests edge, which presened us with a world of adventure in our early years.

It was 1977 and all men hunted. Even if you didn't like to hunt, you did it anyway because otherwise all the other men would consider you strange, or worse...

My brother was 11 and itching to participate in the hunting ritual. I was seven and interested in doing anything he or dad did, particularly if it appeared dangerous.

We grew up around guns and dad decided it was time we had our own guns. Seems crazy by today's standards, but back then it was common for young guys in my neighborhood to be walking in broad daylight down the street with a loaded BB or pellet gun.

That year, Crossman came out with the pump 760, a .177 caliber BB gun that was among the most powerful of its day. I came across the gun a few weeks ago and while it needs repaired, it still was loaded with BBs.

For a while, we did what we were told: we shot things that were not alive. But, once we had lulled our parents into a false sense of trust, we started taking aim at the most abundant living thing around: birds.

Craig was an incredible shot; I was cunning and persistent. We put a hurting on the local bird population. Eventually, dad caught onto us and open season on birds came to an end.

It's incredible now that no other single creature brings me as much joy as song birds. I simply love them.

My favorite of them is on this week's cover: the cedar waxwing. The summer taninger comes in at a close second.

I remember reading Dave Drakula's outdoor columns and in the winter he'd often write about birds. I had never seen, or perhaps just didn't notice, a cedar waxwing at the time, but I loved the bird from the minute I heard its name.

Today, they are frequent visitors to our flowering crab apple trees. I took the photo on today's front page as a group of waxwings worked over those trees.

Now that I have been pretty seriously following the birds that either live here or migrate through, I am amazed how many species there are. And if I'm not mistaken, I think we are being visted by new birds on nearly a year basis.

A serious birder like Bob Martin or Dave Hauber could verify or debunk that.

If you aren't feeding birds, you ought to. It's an easy way to enjoy nature and when winter strikes hard, the supplemental food is great for the birds.

Right now they are doing fine, but in a month's time, they'll spend their days in cover that provides protection from the wind- as close to a good feeder as they can find it.