That red-letter day on the calendar is coming up soon.

First day of spring? Open-water fishing season? The new wild turkey hunting season?

Take your pick. You may choose something entirely different, but this is certainly the season of anticipation for all kinds of reasons.

I don’t hunt or fish, but I’ve found that a lot of the same excitement can be found in bird-watching, and I can just hear a large percentage of this paper’s readers rattling the pages and snorting about another anti-hunting or fishing rant. Not from me. I fully support responsible hunting and fishing, and the main reason I don’t participate is the commitment of time those activities demand.

So, bird-watching is a suitable substitute? You bet it is. It’s as much a sport as any activity, from passive observation to the possibility of an expedition to a mountaintop or even a climb to a treetop nest.

Furthermore, Androscoggin County is a bona fide birders’ hot spot from downtown Lewiston-Auburn to localities that are a short walk away.

Where eagles soar

Eagles soar over the falls, sometimes picking off ducks near Festival Plaza or swooping a few feet from the broken windows of the old Cowan and Libbey mills. When a developer’s vision for those mills takes shape, condominiums will be built there for people who can spend big bucks for such a sight.

If you haven’t got that kind of cash, you can sit for free in the nearby parks, stroll the Riverwalk and the West Pitch trail in Auburn or check to see if that peregrine falcon is perched atop the steeple of the former St. Mary’s Church.

The Stanton Bird Club’s hot spots guide recommends several sites, from the Lewiston water treatment plant to South Bridge, the Roak Block in Auburn, Gulf Island Dam and areas around Lake Auburn.

It all makes me wonder what Uncle Johnny would think about all this today. He would be amazed that feeding birds has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. He would be astounded by digital cameras. He would be delighted to know that people of all ages continue to discover birding.

In fact, Luke Seitz of Falmouth recently won the American Birding Association’s Young Birder of the Year grand prize for 10- to 13-year-olds.

Uncle Johnny’

We can thank Uncle Johnny for putting this area on the map for birders.

Oh, he’s not my uncle. He’s professor Jonathan Young Stanton, a name known to Bates College students through the years. For 55 years, until his death in 1918, he was a Bates professor of Greek and Latin, a debate mentor and a respected ornithologist.

Uncle Johnny initiated popular bird walks for students and townspeople, and his enthusiasm led to the formation of the Stanton Bird Club, which is very active today. The group oversees the 312-acre Thorncrag Bird Sanctuary in the heart of Lewiston, as well as the 160-acre Woodbury Bird Sanctuary in Monmouth.

Special preserves are not required for birding. In fact, the members of that group also know the woods and fields of our riverside neighborhood very well. In the last Christmas bird count, their listing of 50 species included two first-time additions not far from our farm.

A hermit thrush and a Carolina wren were spotted along the Androscoggin on North River Road.

Yes, people get excited about such things.

Just this week, we’ve been thrilled with a visit from a very large pileated woodpecker, and my wife spotted nearly two dozen robins in the field. We’ll be hiking the woodlot soon, but for now our kitchen window has an endless view of cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches, purple finches and many more feeder visitors.

If you think “thrilled” and “excited” are over-the-top adjectives for some bird sightings, you just haven’t caught the bug yet.

Give it a try.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and an Auburn native. You can e-mail him at dasargent@maine.com.

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