Ye gads! My husband is morphing into a birder!

I like birds. I really do. But I do not consider myself a birder. I mainly go on safari to see the mammals.

I know this from experience after my first safari in Kenya and Tanzania in 1979. We had several UC Berkeley professors on our trip as the safari had been organized by the university. A professor of botany, zoology, geology, archaeology, etc. And there was a professor of ornithology too.



During the first couple of weeks of the trip I would move from Land Rover to Land Rover for the daily game drives in order to drive with a different professor on each drive. The professors would use the time in the truck to share his or her knowledge about their respected subjects. They lectured at night around the campfire too but there was something special about seeing their words come to life right in front of you.

One day I got in the truck with the ornithologist. As we drove around the park we came upon a huge pride of lions eating an antelope of some kind. What luck! It was gross but I knew it was a special moment.

I popped my head up through the pop-up window to take some photographs and I realized I was alone on my side of the Land Rover. I looked behind me and everyone else was hanging out the opposite side of the truck with their binoculars raised up watching some bird in a tree. And they were way more excited than me. It was then that I realized I would never find a bird in a hand worth more than a lion in the bush! I was not one of them. After that, I only drove with my own kind.

My husband Vince I am afraid is becoming more of a birder every day. He actually told me in Rwanda that he didn't mind that there weren't any rhinos or lions in Akagera yet because he finds the birds much more interesting! I may have to move to another Land Rover.