Will I ever be a serious birder with all the right gear, knowledge and obsessions? Probably not. But I do know that being outside and watching birds makes me happy. When I get a good photo, I feel like a crow taking a shiny object back to its nest.

I live near Stuart, Florida in the town of Sewall’s Point, which is located on a peninsula between the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon near an inlet to the Atlantic Ocean. This region is nicknamed the Treasure Coast.

From the hammock in my backyard I can watch osprey, wood storks, and pelicans fly over.  Carolina wrens perch on our backyard fence, fish crows flock in winter and pair off in summer, warblers visit the neighborhood banyans and live oaks during migration, ibises aerate our lawns, and egrets snatch lizards from the shrubbery.

I wrote the short tale of how I got started watching birds when we lived in New Hampshire. It was published with some of my photos in Watching Backyard Birds magazine in late 2016. Here is a link: 14 Acres of Habitat in New Hampshire.

A few more things…

I freelanced for local newspapers and magazines for many years, while also being a school and town volunteer and mom to two lovely, smart, creative daughters. We moved to Florida in December 2016 for my husband’s job, mostly. He’s an airline pilot flying the 777 out of Miami to Europe and South America. He likes birds too. He reminds me that he liked birds first, in fact.

I have been a blogger since the beginning of blogging (an era that now seems quite ancient and innocent). My first blog was called “ever so humble.” My place blog “Atlantic Ave” won a “Best in New Hampshire” award from New Hampshire magazine. When I was writing for a local newspaper as well as blogging about my life, family and the New Hampshire Seacoast, my blog was just my name. They are all privately archived now except AMYKANE.NET, where I write sometimes still.

My birding “life list” is on the sidebar, alphabetically. I only count birds I photographed and then blogged. Thanks for visiting!

• Amy Kane

P.S. I have been volunteering at Treasure Coast Wildlife Center in Palm City, Florida since March 2021. I can get really close to some amazing birds there!

I think the most important quality in a birdwatcher is a willingness to stand quietly and see what comes. Our everyday lives obscure a truth about existence – that at the heart of everything there lies a stillness and a light.
― Lynn Thomson

Genesis 1 ²⁰ And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.