Finis Origine Pendet
Where One Exonian’s Lifelong Bird List Began By Eddie Williams ’08
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The Exeter Bulletin
S UMMER 2011
FRED CARLSON
Editor’s Note: Science Instructors Rich Aaronian and Chris Matlack will be leading a student field trip to Costa Rica this summer.
grew up outside Milwaukee, WI, and every summer my family would spend some time at my grandparents’ cottage on a lake in northern Wisconsin. We would fish, hike, canoe, and do most activities one would expect in the wilderness. But I had a special eye for my natural surroundings and did activities on my own, such as snorkeling, frog catching and insect collecting. I have always been fascinated by the natural world and its wildlife. It is tough to explain what exactly makes nature lovers like myself so drawn to the call of a tree frog or the sight of an eagle soaring overhead—we just love it. After being on an Exonian expedition to the Amazon with Science Instructors Richard Aaronian and Chris Matlack during my junior year, I knew there was no turning back on my dream of becoming a field biologist. In my senior year, I enrolled in almost every biology elective that Exeter had to offer, all of which continued to feed my interest. One class, however, truly changed me forever, and I could not imagine myself right now if I had not taken it: Ornithology. Birding (or bird-watching) is a fast-growing hobby in the United States. There is a whole world of people who are addicted to the activity and keep lists of species they have seen. Some people even “twitch” to see new species. In these cases, birders will slap down $500 for a plane ticket to get across the country the moment they hear that a rare or vagrant species has shown up. I first discovered the world of birding when I took Ornithology with Mr. Aaronian. It was the most fun I have ever had in a class, as we took a field trip every week to see living specimens of what we learned in class. Not only was Mr. Aaronian leading us, but we had a whole crew to help us, including Mr. Matlack, Mr. Buddington, Mr. Campbell and Mrs. Tingley. We kept a list of all the species we saw that semester, and this started my lifelong bird list. Wherever I go in the world, I now keep a special eye out for birds, and I make sure to scribble down whatever species I see. My hobby has just two rules: I have to see it in order to count it (just hearing the bird does not count), and I have to be 100 percent sure about the species, otherwise I will not count it. Now I am in tropical Queensland, Australia, on a junior year semester abroad, studying zoology at James Cook University. You bet that I have gone birding every chance I get. I know I have limited time and need to see as many species as possible because I do not know when I will be back. This mentality has developed me into a bit of a twitcher. There are about 750 species usually seen in Australia. My list is at 176 right now. We will see how large that list grows. Whenever I return to my dorm from a morning birding session, with my binoculars and bird guide in hand, my new Australian friends either laugh or are really curious. They ask me if all 20-year-olds in America go bird-watching like I do.They ask me why I do it and what is so great about it. They just don’t understand. Meanwhile my friend Clare Durkin ’08 is doing a semester abroad in Brisbane, hundreds of miles south. While at Exeter we were both day students, and we live only 10 minutes away from one another in New Hampshire. We decided to meet up in the tropical tourist town of Cairns, Queensland, and we reminisced from sunup to sundown. Revisiting Exeter memories on practically the other side of the world was uplifting and surreal at the same time. Some memories from Exeter never get old, no matter what kind of foreign setting you are in. Between all the laughs and stories about Elm Street Dining Hall or Exeter Lax, we managed to venture into the surrounding wilderness.We snorkeled and saw the Great Barrier Reef; we went into the small bit of ancient tropical rainforest in Australia; and thank goodness Clare (continued on page 111) understands the world of birding, as she was enrolled in