Bread and Butter Birds

Usually when you go out to eat, you don't think too much about the bread they serve, unless there is something wrong with it. You just expect to have some nice bread with your meal.

Likewise, when we go birding, we often don't think much about the common birds we see, even though most of the time, that may be about all we find. The common neighborhood birds, the ones you can see almost anytime you go out, might be termed bread and butter birds.

Today during my lunchtime walk, I saw 33 species--including some nice FOS birds (Blue-headed Vireo, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, etc.), but most of the birds were pretty common bread and butter birds.

Now, anytime something as beautiful as a male Eastern Bluebird can be considered something to merely glance at, there is something wrong. Perhaps we need to better appreciate these bread and butter birds. What if we didn't have the time or money to go off to the shore to see something more exotic? Could we learn to be satisfied with our bread and butter birds?

For most of us, there is more to be learned, enjoyed, and appreciated about most of these common birds. That said, we enjoy a little jam or some other topping on our bread. For me today it was probably a Nashville Warbler, a FOS and also a 2008 BIGBY bird.