If you are ever around a person who is known as a birder, one of the questions you can ask them

that they will love to tell you about is what was their spark bird? Sparkbird is the bird that

just about every birder can tell you spark their interest in learning more about birds.

I remember there were really two major spark birds in my life.

One happened when I was, oh, I think 10 or 11 years old.

Like any kid growing up in the eastern half of the United States,

you know, there are some birds you learn the

names of whether you want to or not, you just pick them up. Oh, there's a robin bouncing across the

front yard, cocking his head and looking for worms. Oh, there's a bunch of sparrows. We didn't know

that they were English sparrows and had been an introduced species, but there's a flock of

sparrows chirping and chattering because you threw out some breadcrumbs for them to eat. Of course,

people could identify a cardinal for its bright red color and its perky crest on its head or a jay or a crow or a starling but one day i was

looking out my window i think i was daydreaming while i was supposed to be doing my homework and right by my

window sill a sparrow landed but there was something wrong with this sparrow.

Instead of being brown and tan, it had a reddish head.

And I thought, hold it. Sparrows don't have a reddish head.

And so I just thought, that's strange.

Someday I have to find out the name of that bird.

So I thought of it when I was at the library not long after that.

This was before the internet, of course, where you just look it up online.

And so I went and found a book about common birds.

And I found out it was either a house finch or a purple finch

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