My fellow bird enthusiast Ed Grew never fails to notify me of interesting bird sightings. Earlier in the week he had left two messages for me at work, so I called him back as soon as I could. His observation of what he thought were two American pipits, while not unexpected – they usually are spotted during migration – was unusually early compared to when the first birds of the season are spotted.

He gave me a detailed account of when and where he saw them and why he thought they were pipits. I thanked him sincerely for letting me know.

“Well, it’s really a bit of self-interest on my part,” he explained. “It really helps to have someone else see and identify them, to confirm the sighting.”

In the birding world, having someone else confirm what you saw is not only personally edifying but sometimes crucial in validating the identification of the bird. Once a few knowledgeable people study and compare field notes and agree on the bird’s identity, it is taken more seriously by the birding community at large. Although this seems harsh, it is not done out of malice; rather, it is a sort of self-check system similar to that employed with more rigorous standards in the scientific community.

“I saw the birds Friday, Saturday, and today,” Ed said. “They may still be around tomorrow – it seems this wind has been keeping them pinned down in the area for now. They really seem to like the field by the Witter Farm marsh.”

This meant he expected me to run out before work the next morning to look for them.

While my new position affords me more time in the morning, this time of the year really tests my enthusiasm for anything. The vernal equinox may have passed, but mornings are still cold, and winter blues are still with me. Plus, because I now work later in the evening, it is still almost dark when I leave work – very depressing.

Still, I felt I couldn’t let Ed down. Knowing I’d never get up in time to go look for pipits if I were going alone, I asked my co-worker Paul Markson – also a fellow birder- to meet me.

I grumbled as soon as my toes touched the floor the next morning. The bright sunny day dispelled some of the sloth on my drive over to marsh. As I parked the car on the side of the road and opened my door, a blast of cold air, rushing unimpeded over the fields, slammed into me, obliterating the illusion of a mild spring morning. Paul walked over to me, his face beet-red from the wind, eyes streaming with tears from the cold.

“I’m going to get you for this,” he said.

“It’s Ed’s fault!” I joked.

We made a plan to walk and scan the field, taking advantage of a windbreak provided by a line of trees and having the wind at our backs on our return trip. I didn’t have much hope at first of spotting little brown birds amidst dead brown grass.

However, pipits are easily flushed. Suddenly, they sprang up into the air several yards from us, uttering their squeaky “pipitpipit” call – one identification clue. I was able to get the binoculars on them in spite of the erratic bursts of wind and saw their white outer tail feathers, which is another identification clue. A third clue revealed itself once they settled on the ground again: The characteristic bobbing of their tails was easy to spot as they foraged through the beaten-down vegetation.

Soon Ed joined us; earlier we had spotted him strolling across the field, seemingly unaffected by the cold and wind.

A few crows flew overhead, and the pipits flushed again, this time coming toward us. I was then able to see a final identification clue: some light brown streaking on their tan-colored chests. The morning was a complete success!

American pipits are ground-nesting birds that breed in alpine meadows and arctic tundra, mostly in Canada and Alaska. They breed in only two spots in the entire northeastern United States: atop Mt. Washington, N.H.,, and on Mt. Katahdin in an area known as The Tablelands. Considering this, I was darned glad I had seen them; this was my first positive pipit identification, as well as Paul’s.

Who cared if it was windy and cold?

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