Birding with Grandpa -- With Dick Ashford

Dick Ashford, former board president of Klamath Bird Observatory, completed a career with the Navy before learning about birds in earnest. Like many, he's taking time to share his love of birds - and looking for Red-shouldered Hawks, like this one - with younger generations. One of the lucky kids is his grandson, Jack. Dick says: "The day after Thanksgiving, I was able to show him, in one day, a Golden Eagle, a White-tailed Kite, and a Northern Harrier plus an assortment of waterfowl and shorebirds." A good day for grandfather and grandson!

BirdNote salutes all who share their love of birds with young people.

BirdNote^®

Birding with Grandpa
Featuring Dick Ashford

Interviewed by Chris Peterson

    This is BirdNote!
    [Call of a Red-shouldered Hawk]
Dick Ashford, president (emeritus*) of Klamath Bird Observatory, in Oregon, completed a career with the Navy before learning about birds in earnest. Today, he describes himself as a "continuing student of birds and birding." Like many, he’s taking time to share his love of birds – like looking for Red-shouldered Hawks – with younger generations.
[Repeat call of Red-shouldered Hawk]
    One of the lucky ones is his ten-year-old grandson, Jack. Here’s Dick:
“A couple of years ago, I decided maybe it was time to see if Jack could stand a full day in the field looking at birds, so we took the day after Thanksgiving…and I was able to show him, in one day: a Golden Eagle in the scope, perched; I was able to show him a White-tailed Kite in the scope, perched; a Northern Harrier in the scope, perched, plus an assortment of waterfowl (ducks), shorebirds, over in the Great Central Valley of California.”

[Northern Pintails chattering]

[And he didn’t necessarily come back from that experience able to repeat all the field marks of the birds that he had seen, but]…He ‘felt’ that experience and I’d like to think that some of it was because he was with his grandpa. …I know that some of the experience for me was because I was with my grandson.”

BirdNote salutes all who share their love of birds and enjoy days afield with young people. [If you’ve been lucky in this way, and want to let us know, tell us about your experience at birdnote.org.] For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.
[Repeat call of Red-shouldered Hawk]
                                                                               ###
* Dick Ashford served 2 terms as president of the board of Klamath Bird Observatory and is now an honorary board member.

Sounds of provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Call of Red-shouldered Hawk [105335] recorded by G.A. Keller; calls of Northern Pintail 43082 recorded by W.W.H. Gunn.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org November 2018 Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# birding-18-2012-11-20 birding-18

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