Birding with One Eye Sans Binoculars

Ever since Tuesday, when I had cataract extraction performed on my right (dominant) eye, I have felt more disoriented than usual. I have fine distance sight without glasses out of my eye for the first time since the second grade and, with "cheaters" I can read, and write well enough. Theoretically, removing the lens from the right side of my glasses should provide me with good sight until the next eye is done, but my brain doesn't agree with the theory and can't make the adjustment of seeing out of lenses that are different distances from the retina--one on the eye, the other a half inch away. Consequently, I can walk around, watch television, read the clocks pretty well if I ignore the slight fuzziness on my left side, if I can ignore the urge to put on glasses. But the habits of a lifetime are difficult to break. Every time I awake in the middle of night to go to the bathroom, I reach for glasses I don't need.

None of this would bother me as much, probably, if I could bird, but I really shouldn't press binoculars up against the eye until it is healed--which is another strange feeling it isn't healed yet I have had none of the post-op "discomfort" (medical euphemism for pain) of which I was warned. So I have had to bird with one eye sans binoculars and my birding has been limited to the backyard and the streets of Crestwood Village.

One of the reasons I delayed the surgery until December was because I knew that opportunities for new birds would be limited and I thought my attitude toward chasing might be like last year's when I just got sick of it. But I still would like to go out, wander around and look at birds. I'd like to see something beyond the juncos, goldfinches, and Mourning Doves that make up 70% of the birds I've seen this week. It is amazing I can see any birds with one eye, no glasses, no optics. When I saw in the backyard, on the day after the surgery, the little yellow spot on the head of a Golden-crowned Kinglet, a bird we rarely see near our feeders, I knew the operation was a success in that my sight was as good as old--but it doesn't seem better than when I wore glasses. The birds seem pretty much like they did with glasses--they aren't brighter, or sharper, or more beautiful. The idea that reality looked different when not mediated by thick pieces of plastic has wilted. It's all right; I was always skeptical how wonderful my sight would be. I was never impressed with the prospect of not wearing glasses.  Wearing glasses c'est moi.

Now I just want to get back to seeing without thinking about seeing. My left eye will be done on the 19th. Ironically, you spend weeks dreading the first operation, scared of someone operating on your eye, find out it is even less traumatic than they told you it would be, then spend the next two weeks fervently wishing the day would come when the second eye (which will have a multi-focal lens so that I can read and see distances most of the time without going to glasses) is fixed.

I hope to be back birding full force in January. My spirit for birding had become dulled by November. This enforced layoff is sharpening it again.