Bird watching. Noun (archaic). A form of harmless staring, conducted in woody areas, by genial eccentrics often named Matilda or Chauncey.
Birding. Noun (neologism). Dynamic, addictive and highly contagious behavior combining hunting skills, aesthetic delight, intellectual analysis and the dreamy withdrawal from normal life, especially during spring migration.
Every spring, billions of birds, increasingly restless from the secretion of seasonal hormones, mass into flocks, burst into the sky and pour up the great flyways across the U.S. and Canada. Millions of birders, just as restless but without hormonal justification, compulsively pour outdoors in search of vireos, tanagers, flycatchers, hawks and the...
