Noah Strycker

“That the culmination of my yearlong world tour, into which I invested all my creativity and resources, was embodied in this obscure gray bird on a nameless hillside in a remote province of India seemed perfectly appropriate. Birding is about appreciating life’s infinite details—and if subtlety is beauty, then a birder will never run short of wonder. That number 6,000 did not seem like a conquest—it felt like a fresh beginning.”

“I couldn’t keep up with the virtual world while living so large in the real world.”

“Culturally speaking, we millennials are significantly different from the baby boomers or even Generation X: we are more progressive, less religious, more educated, less family-oriented, more urban, less political, more narcissistic, less environmentally minded, and, above all, more technologically dependent. For better or worse, my generation lives on computers and smartphones; we are children of the Internet.”

“I learned from reading bird books that nothing happens outside of historical context. In birding as in everything, personalities and events unfold over time, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon you wake up to discover that you are part of the stream.”

“And by setting their sights on the freest creatures in the world, birders have a unique perspective about how their subjects stitch together even the furthest parts of our globe. Birds teach us that borders are just lines drawn on a map—a lesson we can all take to heart.”

“There is a special joy in watching an actual Scarlet Tanager instead of looking at a virtual red bird, however spectacular, on a phone screen.”

“The worlds most frequent flyers don’t have platinum status, free upgrades, or even passports. Every hour, millions of these undocumented immigrants pour across major political borders, and nobody thinks of building walls to keep them out. It would be impossible to anyway. Birds are true global citizens, free to come and go as they please.”