Introducing the Home Buyers' Birdwatching Guide

Twelve years ago, when I was exploring previously unfamiliar towns, getting ready to buy my first home, a friend gave me a great piece of advice. "Listen for the birds," she said. "If birds live there, you'll know it's a healthy place to be."

I'd never thought about that before, but I've never forgotten her words. And the home I eventually selected did, indeed, echo with the sound of birdsong. It abuts many acres of wooded conservation land, and provides abundant natural habitat for a variety of native avian species, including an owl or two who seem to have taken up residence in the trees around my barn, and an occasional red-tailed hawk who eyes my chickens and the chickadees who visit my deck. I've become an avid backyard birdwatcher, constantly experimenting with different varieties of seed and feeder designs in an ongoing effort to tempt new birds out of hiding and into my camera's lens. As evidenced by the beautiful purple finches seen at my Droll Yankees' Dorothy's Cardinal Feeder earlier this week, I'm starting to get lucky.

When I decided to move to Sterling, it wasn't just the birds in the backyard who called to me. I was thrilled to be within minutes of some of the region's natural gems, including the 1100-acre Wachusett Meadow Audubon Sanctuary in Princeton, and Wachusett Mountain, whose summit provides a panoramic vantage point for birders to watch and document the annual fall migration, and Wachusett Reservoir, a popular hot spot for waterfowl and fish-eating species.

As a real estate agent who specializes in country properties because I cherish open land and want to help preserve it from wanton development, it occurred to me that other homeseekers might also want to know whether they will be able to "hear the birds" from their prospective homesteads, or at least see them in nearby venues. As I learned during my participation in therecently concluded 2007 Christmas Bird Count, an amazing array of birds can be found in some seemingly unlikely places, even in densely populated areas, such as Maynard, where the Assabet River sustains great blue herons, mergansers, mallers, and even an osprey, and where the trees around one of the old mill buildings shelter numerous bluebirds.

So I hope to provide a literal bird's eye view of real estate from this perspective, and welcome your input and participation!