I love spending time outdoors, and I enjoy opportunities to do so while learning, exercising, and having new experiences. On the first day of spring this year - March 20th - I joined some friends in a birding hike at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center in Stone State Park. To our surprise, part of the way through a cameraman appeared to document the event for the local news!

In this ABC television affiliate KCAU 9 video clip, you’ll hear about what we were up to but also get a glimpse of me on the trail - I’m the birdwatcher in the striped shirt, black face mask, maroon hat, and grey backpack. On this hike, I learned how to focus binoculars and became a little more familiar with some of the more common birds in the region: the white-breasted nuthatch, the red-bellied woodpecker, and the downy and hairy woodpeckers (they look very similar but have different beak lengths). We also saw a couple of bald eagles and turkeys, though I had already been able to identify those!