You will know that they are birders by their song

Let's go back to the beginning. My birding life knew no meaning; the feathery creatures were only annoyances to our newly-washed cars and threats to our tenuous apricot crops. But divine eyes saw through my ugly mask of ignorance and brought me to LeTourneau University, where I was to meet two zealous evangelists whose gospel found fertile soil my junior year.

David was already a good friend from a number of other activities. Once, he excitedly informed me that a piece of his had been published in the newsletter of an organization of which he was a member. When I read it, I shook my head in amazement. He wrote about his adventures in nature as if he had lived there for years and intimately befriended its denizens. Why hadn't I ever heard about this before?

Standing in his room one evening, I first saw birders in fellowship. Jason came in and they discussed previous trips they took together. I knew they had gone on camping trips together before, but their real pursuit was not the rockiest, muddiest, or coldest ground on which they could pitch a tent: it was the very flying vertebrates I had pushed to the fringe of my consciousness for two decades!

They told stories of experience, revelled in spectacular finds, and, yes, taunted one another with what they had seen. "These guys are serious," I thought. I questioned them and was enthusiastically invited to the next excursion: ducking at Lake o' the Pines. The hallowed scripture, the Sibley, was placed in my hands and I was commissioned to study to show myself approved. Over 500 pages of unfamiliar material paraded before my eyes. There had to be a reason they pursued these bipeds with such unrelenting passion. I had to find out. I accepted the invitation.