by Eric Wagner
In Jeanne Finke’s kitchen sit a pair of binoculars and bird guides, which she tends to reach for, as she says, in the way others might reach for salt and pepper. For Jeanne, they are just as necessary. She lives on the North Bay of Grays Harbor in southwest Washington and sees birds through her window all the time—pelagic birds, shorebirds, the latter sometimes in great numbers during migration. She’s taken classes on bird biology and feels she has a good handle on her local avifauna, but she’s always curious to know more about what might be around, whether in view or out of sight, living or dead.
Jeanne Finke on survey in December 2017. Photo credit: Susan Kloeppel.