I identified my first bird as a child, on vacation in Wisconsin. I saw a bird hopping down a tree headfirst and I realized it was a White Breasted Nuthatch, a bird I had recently read about in my aunt's two volume "Birds of North America." It was a real Helen Keller-water moment. A description I had read came alive before me, no longer abstract and irrelevant but a tool in triumphantly naming something.

Then I forgot about birds, living in a city of English sparrows and pigeons as I did.

Until I wrote Bobby Blanchard Lesbian Gym Teacher. And yes, the crucial role played by the White Breasted Nuthatch is no coincidence. Birding became research, and then when the book was written, I was somehow hooked on what a friend once described as "an old people kind of hobby."

Whatever. I'm swiftly heading towards that age-group, and really, birding is the gift that keeps on giving. Today I screeched to a stop biking in Marin because I caught sight of an odd bird--could it be--yes, it was a Black Crowned Night Heron! A bird I've been longing to see ever since I read about it in my Birds of San Francisco and the Bay Area book.

It was thrilling. Like the time I passed Isabella Rossellini in lower Manhattan. Just as good. Maybe even better. After all, everyone knows Isabella Rossellini. But only the privileged few (million) can recognize a Black Crowned Night Heron.