Readers of The Richmond News might have seen our daily Good Morning, Richmond (GMR) posts at Richmond-News.com featuring snapshots of the breathtaking scenery around the city. GMR started in 2021 and has featured more than 400 photos so far.
As we look towards the new year, we wanted to learn more about our regular contributors. In this third profile in our series, we spoke to Caroline Sayson, who has sent in countless lively photos of birds spotted around the city.
Sayson, 61, is a retired financial professional and volunteers her time caring for other retirees. She often shows her wildlife photos to homebound retirees.
She is also a self-proclaimed “COVID-19 pandemic birder baby.”
When Sayson first visited the Reifel Bird Sanctuary in Delta before 2020, she was apprehensive about birding as a hobby as she felt it was “nerdy.”
“I remember saying to my friends, ‘I hope we don’t look like those (birders at the sanctuary). They’re nerds!’” she recalled.
But when the pandemic struck, Sayson’s brother Winston introduced her to his birding friends and she immediately fell in love with the thrill of spotting rare birds and quickly took up the hobby, along with photography.
And despite her initial apprehension, the “exhilarating” feeling of seeing a beautiful bird after a long wait is what keeps Sayson going as a birder.
“When you look at the picture and see the colours and the details, that makes you want to continue,” she said. And with ever-changing backgrounds in her photos, she never gets tired of photographing birds.
“My late father often said, ‘A hobby is a crazy thing to keep you from going crazy.’ I think birding is one of those crazy and fun hobbies.”
One of Sayson’s most memorable birding moments took place at Iona Beach Regional Park on the first day of 2022. She was determined to spot a snowy owl after a friend joked she would have a good birding year if she spotted a special bird on New Year’s Day.
“I was on the jetty, and saw nothing after walking 30 minutes, but persevered and kept walking until I saw a few photographers in the distance,” she said. “I picked up my pace, and lo and behold, when I got to where they were, the photographers were clicking away at a snowy owl perched on a log near the water.”
“And indeed, I had a good birding year in 2022!”
As a beginner, Sayson found flight shots to be the most difficult part of bird photography since the wrong settings could result in a batch of blurry shots.
But there is a trick to help a novice birder anticipate when birds are about to take flight — poop.
“If you see (birds) hunched over and poop, it’s going to fly soon,” said Sayson, though she’s not sure why it happens. “(A joke) among the birders is that the load has to come out first before they can fly.”
