As a young adult I had a passion for animals and wanted a job that would lead me in that direction. My first love was marine mammals and especially the orca.  I had and still have today, a complete set of Jacques Cousteau books.  I remember spending many a day reading those books and imagining what it would be like to spend my days, as a marine biologist, studying those magnificent creatures.  One of my favorite paintings, hanging on a wall in my home, is of a small pod of orcas along a rocky coast line.  I was totally enthralled with whales, sea lions and seals.  I remember writing an English paper on the life history of the harp seals.

While studying zoology at a community college, our class went on a whale watching trip off the coast of California.  Yes, we did see whales, but unfortunately I was prone to motion sickness and found that it followed me onto the boat ride and for days after.  I realized then that marine biology was not for me.  I still hold the orca close to my heart and would willingly suffer the throws of nausea to spend time with them in their native habitats.

I continued my studies and decided terrestrial biology and the big cats would be the next best thing.  I wanted to study them in their natural environment and there was a big cat mammalogist, from the University of California, Davis, who studied cheetahs in Africa.  I applied to UC Davis and was accepted.  I was finally close to my goal but there were those in my family that did not think studying animals was any type of career or way to make a living.  I knew people that had jobs in wildlife biology and they were working, though they did say it was difficult to find full-time work.  I tried hard to not let the non-believers threaten my dream and moved forward with attending UC Davis the following year.

The assignment of an ornithologist, as my college advisor, was a major disappointment.  I did not want to study birds.  Big cats were still my dream.  I came to know well my mammalogy professor, who had a passion for bats, not cats.  His mammalogy course was great and I hoped that soon I would be able to meet and take a course from the big cat mammalogist.  Instead, I was inducted into the world of bats.  The other terrestrial mammals took a backseat when it came to studying mammalogy.  I found myself very interested in bats from the passion with which the professor talked about them.  I hoped however, that the bat-bander’s special he spoke about, was something I never had the opportunity to appreciate.  I soon came to appreciate the uniqueness of these flying mammals.  It was another step in my conversion.

The early part of my conversion, unknown to me, occurred while I was in community college.  I worked with birds in a wildlife rehabilitation setting.  I never considered studying birds as a career path, for me it was a way to get some experience handling wildlife, especially mammals.  I came to realize later, that my time spent with the birds at the wildlife care facility was an important part of my indoctrination to birds.

Little did I know that the classmates I began to know well and visit in the ornithology lab at UC Davis would lead me down the path to study birds.  Eventually, I too was employed in the ornithology lab and my college friendships and passion for birds grew.  The weekly class field trips opened another door, as I was introduced to birding.  Not only did I take ornithology, I became an undergraduate teaching assistant in the ornithology lab the following year.  Needless to say, my passion for birds was underway.

If you have any questions after reading this blog, please don’t hesitate to comment and I will gladly answer your questions.  If you want to hear more about my conversion to birds and my developing passion, follow my blog.  I will talk more about how I became a wildlife biologist and the path I took.  I hope to see you there!