The American Birding Association’s annual convention is being held in Bangor this week. As I write this, bird watchers from all over the continent are enjoying workshops, field trips, and seminars led by some of the top birders and ornithologists in the country. It’s probable many of the attendees have been birding for several years at least, if not decades.

I’ve been birding for about a decade, myself, but I can still remember the first time I learned about a bird that was new to me, when I was a kid in Jersey City, N.J. Thinking back, I realize this event may have been what ultimately influenced me to become so intensely interested in birds as an adult.

I remember I was in my grandmother’s kitchen when the bird hit the window. My father took one look and immediately rushed out to the backyard. The bird lay on the concrete, slightly stunned, while a blue jay harassed it. Dad chased the jay away and brought the injured bird into the house, setting it in a blanket in a small storage room.

The bird had a brown back and a spotted white breast; my father said it was a thrush. I do not now know what kind of thrush it was; it may have been a hermit thrush. It turned out not to be seriously injured, quickly recovering its senses once we left it alone in peace and quiet. Not knowing any better, we left seeds for it to eat – we lived in the city and didn’t know that birds required anything else. We didn’t know about wildlife rehabilitation and it never occurred to us that we could consult a local veterinarian. Despite our ignorance, the bird seemed to recover, and we set it free.

The next day, we found another thrush – or perhaps it was the same one – in someone’s driveway up the block. The bird was dead.

I remember being very upset, wondering what mysterious force was bringing these exotic birds into the city – we had never seen them before – and causing them to fall out of the sky. It was autumn; I remember those few days being very gray and dreary, as only such a day in a crowded city can be. I now know it must have been a weakened, desperate migrant – or migrants – that had alighted in our neighborhood hoping to find food and shelter.

How I wish, now, that we had done something different, that we had been more capable. But I’m grateful for one thing – that my father had communicated his interest and compassion to me. Sometimes that is all it takes to open up a whole new world of knowledge and understanding – in my case, it happened many years afterward, but I am glad it did at all.

There were many more experiences that nurtured my growing interest in birds and the natural world, but I’d also like to share someone else’s with you.

Recently I received a lovely e-mail from Cheryl in Newburgh asking for help with identifying a mysterious bird song. Cheryl had long enjoyed the birds that visited her feeders, learning to identify the regulars by sight. This interest had also been nurtured many years ago by her parents, who had taken ornithology classes and kept a bird book and a pair of binoculars by the window at all times. Cheryl had continued this tradition, but something happened to bring it to a new level.

“I’m not exactly sure how or why I went from just being happy to see the birds at the feeder to wanting to identify them by their songs, except for the fact that I kept hearing that one bird over and over and finally got curious enough to wonder what it was and want to find out!”

Cheryl had bought the Peterson’s “Birding by Ear” CDs but was still having a hard time pinning the song down. After reading her description of it, I was stumped as well. Before I could e-mail her any further suggestions, she figured it out herself: the mysterious bird song was that of a veery. Her triumph came through in her next e-mail.

“I am a very new beginner at birding by ear, so it is exciting to now be able to identify one or two. I heard a bird the other evening when I was watching TV. I jumped up, went to the window, listened again, and said – hey, that’s a barred owl! I got that from listening to the first two CDs over and over. This is a big deal for someone who never knew any bird calls before.”

Yes, it is, and it brings to mind this quote, by Baba Dioum:

“In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught.”

BDN bird columnist Chris Corio can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net