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Shai Mitra grew up in Rhode Island, where he first discovered the wonders of Red Maple swamps. Read Shai's entertaining responses below and learn about some of his memorable experiences as well as his multiple roles as a key contributor at NYSOA throughout the past 20+ years.
How long have you been a NYSOA member?
“I became intensely interested in Long Island bird records as soon as I came here in spring 1996, and I joined the Federation as soon as I could afford it. This was around the time I began birding with Patricia Lindsay in April 1999. A little later, I went all-in as a Life Member. I might have been the last one. In a memorable and characteristic combination of behaviors, Berna Lincoln chuckled, scolded me, and promptly moved to eliminate that membership category (but pre-existing Life Members were permitted to continue living).”
What positions have you held in the organization (and for how long)?
“Manny Levine played a big role in my relationship with the Federation. I met him on a nice fall day in 1996 when I walked over to the Fire Island Hawkwatch after a morning banding birds at the Lighthouse research station. Learning who I was, he immediately berated me about a rare woodpecker, for not submitting the record to NYSARC. A few years later, I joined NYSARC and served there for about eight years. In 2003, I took over editorship of The Kingbird from Manny, and I also became Regional Editor for Region 10.”
What is it about NYSOA that keeps you involved?
“My interest in bird records involves everything about them--the beauty of the birds, the ecological properties of the places where birds occur, and the skills, insights, prejudices, and foibles of the people who watch birds. I love the people involved with NYSOA. The knowledge, values, and sentiments embodied in these people never cease to amaze me and give me hope.”
How long have you been birding?
“I grew up near the edge of the Great Swamp, in southern mainland Rhode Island, and my earliest memories involve exploring the Red Maple swamps around my house. At first I focused on salamanders, frogs, and snakes, but I was also aware of a few species of birds. The first bird I ever mis-identified was an enormous, black and white, red-crested woodpecker on our woodpile. Using the only resource available to me, an endangered species coloring book, I recognized it as an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. This was about 1974, and it would be 40 years before my next Pileated Woodpecker in that yard.”
Did you have a particular experience that hooked you on birding?
“My focus shifted decisively to birds in late 1979 or early 1980, when I discovered Bob Conway's newly published "Field Checklist of Rhode Island Birds" in a long-gone book shop called the Sign of the Unicorn. It was an unillustrated, mimeographed pamphlet with bar graphs expressing the seasonal occurrence of 312 regularly occurring species and other sections detailing records of "Casual and Accidental," “Hypothetical,” and “Historical” species. It literally blew my mind. It cost $2.22, but I had to ask my dad to buy it for me. Predictably, I promptly had another encounter with a woodpecker, this time on my paper route. It was the most amazing-looking creature I had ever seen, with a red crescent on the back of its head, brown and black barring, beautifully subtle tones of cream, buff, and gray, a bold black stripe on its face and intense black spots on its breast--and then an explosion of yellow and white when it flushed. Lacking a field guide, I consulted the Checklist (unillustrated). My bird was so beautiful that I suspected it was probably the rare Red-headed Woodpecker (an early brush with the dark side of listing!), but to my credit, I decided I really needed a field guide, and maybe even binoculars, and I came back into the light.”
What is your favorite place to go birding in NYS?
“The western end of Fire Island, from Kismet and the Lighthouse to Robert Moses State Park and Democrat Point.”
Favorite species?
“There have been three, almost from the very beginning: Osprey, American Robin, and Song Sparrow. And also flicker.”
Is anyone else in your family a birder as a result of your interest?
“Everyone in my small family has become aware of birds to some degree. When my dad died in 2012, I found among his papers detailed hand-written records of Wild Turkeys visiting that same backyard in Kingston where the Pileated Woodpecker had been. But the only ones who became active birders were my mother and Pat’s niece, Holly. In my early years, my mother drove me everywhere. We used to walk on Narragansett Beach in the winter, followed by spinach pies and coffee milk at Pit 'n' Patio. On one very cold, windy walk, I thought I found a Western Grebe and almost sent her running to a pay phone. But I stuck with it, got better looks, and figured out it was a Red-throated Loon. My mother was the first person to confirm the nesting of Red-bellied Woodpecker in Rhode Island.”
What do you do for a living?
“I'm a professor at the College of Staten Island, where I teach biology and study avian migration, vagrancy, and distribution.”
Anything else you would like to add?
“I'd emphasize again how mysterious and compelling bird records can be. Each convergence of bird and observer crystallizes a unique combination of objective events and subjective expectations, knowledge, and bias. When my teen-aged self recognized that my possible Western Grebe was really a Red-throated Loon, I could never have known (but probably hoped!) that someday I would have reason to run from Narragansett Beach to find a pay phone, or that I might eventually see a Western Grebe there. As it happened, in November 1998 I had to seek that phone booth, tearing myself away from a rare alcid I found there; and it came to pass in April 2012 that I saw a Western Grebe there, too!”
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