What Do I Know?

I don’t know much about birds, and I think about this every Tuesday morning when I show up for my volunteer assignment at the Audubon visitors center. Sometimes I make it through my three-hour shift without one of the visitors asking about some bird specific. I used to count this as at least a small blessing, when I was more sensitive about the whole birder thing. Now I don’t think about it so much. After all, I’m comfortable chatting it up with visitors about life in these parts—hiking, places to eat, museums and galleries, and I’ve gotten really handy using the Internet to look up information about birds that are common to our area!

Last week I took a phone call from a man in Michigan planning a visit to New Mexico. He had questions about a specific bird, and thanks to the board that the center here maintains with information on recent sightings, I was able to tell him that a pinon jay was recorded for the day after Thanksgiving. I managed to talk intelligently with him about his plans to see the sandhill cranes at the wildfowl management area south of Albuquerque. Most important to me in our conversation was the feeling of connecting. I felt helpful.

I guess most visitors here assume that whoever volunteers in the visitor center is at least a novice birder. What drew me to this place was the setting and the historic house that is its anchor, a sawmill dating to the Mexican American War that an established artist from New York made into a home for his family in the early 1920s. I had planned to become a docent in the house, but I am allergic to something that has left me feeling a little asthmatic every time I’ve been in the house. Old stuff in an old building that remains closed most of the time—an irony for sure for someone who has a long love affair with that sort of history. Though I don’t conduct tours of the historic house here, I welcome the chance to talk about Randall Davey, whose family generously donated this property 20 years after his death. And during the growing season, I’m reasonably conversant in talking about the native garden on our grounds, which is maintained by the local master gardener group.

No expert am I—not really about anything—even though I know more than little about a few things. As I used to say when I was a recent graduate of the master gardener course in Texas, I can’t really get my thumb and forefinger close enough together to show how little I do know. Doesn’t the same apply to most of the stuff most of us spend our time on? Sometimes I marvel at the talking heads on cable television, holding forth on everything from finance to human trafficking to the threat of terrorism. How does one become so smart, I ask. And would I really want to be such an expert? Not really, I answer myself. That’s fine for someone else. I’m happy knowing more than a little about a few things and handily pointing out the whole thumb and forefinger visual.

On this day, with the local dark-eyed juncos, black-capped chickadees (or is it the mountain chickadee?) and pine siskins flitting around the winter shrubbery and lighting on the feeder outside the window of my workplace, I’m celebrating my modest share of knowledge and the opportunity to grow it each day. Each time I answer the phone, “good morning,” I’m remembering the gift I’m offered of being connected, indeed.

What Do I Know—Santa Fe, New Mexico (December 7, 2010)
R. Harold Hollis