People ask me how long I’ve been a birder. The answer is both simple and complicated. I always say I became a birder back in 1993 while taking a college course in Ornithology. And that much is true.
But I have had an interest in birds (and all wildlife) for as long as I can remember. I grew up in rural Saginaw County, where I had full access to fields and woods and ponds just outside my back door. …