Here is the interview I conducted at my aunt's house in October.
http://kiwi6.com/file?id=62q3o4z3TRANSCRIPT:
"My name is Cindy Ploch. I've been involved in birdwatching for more than a quarter of a century. After my mom passed away, I just needed to get away by myself, and I just stumbled across this whole concept of birdwatching and I started taking it up as a hobby.
I have seen over three hundred and fifty different species of birds. When I go out birdwatching, any new bird that I see is called a life bird. So it's always my goal every year to increase the number of life birds that I see. I have several favorite birds, one of them being a cardinal. I like cardinals because that was one of my mom's favorite birds. Then I also like hummingbirds, because shortly before my dad passed away, he gave me a lot of things that had related to hummingbirds, such as figurines and some jewelery, even some note cards. Every time I see a cardinal or a hummingbird, I think of them.
I've taken several long distance trips. One into Florida, one into Texas, a couple up toward Maine, even one in Canada. Which one's been my favorite? Well, I think maybe the one to Florida, because that was the first really long distance trip that I took, and I was able to see a number of life birds. Also I went to a place called Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge and there were a lot of birds I had never seen before, and they were all different colors such as the Rosiette Spoonbill - Rosiette means that it's pink, and Spoonbill - well, that kinda describes the shape of it's bill, like a spoon! There are times when we don't see very many birds, and I say we because I'm a member of the local birding club, and even though we might not see any unusual birds, or I might not see any life birds, a lot of times it's just the company that I'm with. Because my fellow birders and I, well, we're great friends.
If you want to take up birdwatching, remember one important thing, and that is you don't have to buy any kind of equipment to see birds, as long as you have a fairly good set of eyes, you can see birds everywhere. But on the other hand, if you get really, really, really interested in it, you can buy very expensive binoculars, spotting scopes, a lot of people even buy special camera equipment. There's a lot of people who have been hunters in the past, and they end up becoming excellent birdwatchers."
