Sometimes the most amazing creatures are invisible to us for decades.

And then one day we look around and think, “Oh my goodness, what are these miraculous, little, flying creatures? And where have they been all my life?”

I’m talking about birds. From that initial ping, bird love can become an unslakable thirst. You want more, you need more. More birds, more varieties, more interactions, more good spots to bird watch, better binoculars, better birdseed, squirrel-proof feeders. You find fellow bird lovers and talk about amazing birds you’ve seen and hope to see. You are morose over not being able to identify that one white bird with the yellow chest. You search eBird for hot spots for juicy new birds and memorize photos so you can better tell them apart. You hope for hawks on light poles every time you hit the interstate.

The bird love is real, and it can hit you like Cupid’s arrow — when you least expect it. Many times it comes in the form of a spark bird — that bird that makes you take notice of this whole other kingdom that surrounds us, that’s been there all along just waiting for you to unlock the gate and walk through.

Sadly, I cannot remember any such spark bird that ignited my undying love for the avian crew. One day I just seemed to notice they were all there and from then on I couldn’t get enough. I recall the hawk, though, that I believe fired up my huge crush on raptors. It alighted on my bird feeder about 3 feet from the kitchen window where I sat mesmerized. You’ve never heard or seen a bustling backyard full of songbirds, woodpeckers and squirrels go so quiet so quickly.

Not too long ago I watched a Facebook friend enter the magical bird kingdom. She posted a photo of a house finch, a very common bird you see on the regular, and said she’d just noticed it and wondered if people knew the name of this beautiful bird. Clearly, this was her spark bird. Twas a blatant display of the bird sorcery that initiates a new member into the inner circle.

Susanne Haines, manager of Wild Birds Unlimited, moved to the U.S. from England 34 years ago. She fed birds in her garden, as most English people do, she says, but guess what bird they don’t have across the pond?

“The first bird I identified was a hummingbird,” she said. “We don’t get them. I came in June and I saw them straight away. I bought my house and was like what is that? I saw it go backwards from a couple of flowers in the garden. That’s when the love and research started on what it was.”

She now has 15 hummingbird feeders up at her home near the Colorado Springs Country Club, and recommends you keep them out until the end of October.

A downy woodpecker chattered its siren song for two other local bird lovers. When Julie Frost, the co-owner of Songbird Orchids, moved to the Springs from Denver and started feeding birds in the first home she’d had with a backyard, it was the black and white bird with his jaunty red cap that cast his spell.

“We got a lot of normal birds like chickadees and nuthatches and finches, but a downy woodpecker started visiting frequently and that’s the one who grabbed my attention,” Frost said. “He was so different from the others and fun to watch.”

The downy woodpecker also wooed Fountain Creek Nature Center Supervisor Jessica Miller. More than a decade ago, she was hanging out at her parents’ Georgia home when something caught her eye in the backyard — a “striking black and white bird hopping around the trunk of a tree.” She identified it quickly thanks to a bird book.

“I had lived in this house in the woods for 20 years and surely they had always been there, but for whatever reason that day I finally noticed,” Miller said. “That day I saw both a male and a female. The idea that maybe they were a pair that had babies nearby was really lovely. I started paying attention to all the other birds in the yard and surrounding woods. Each one felt like I was discovering a previously unknown species. It became an addicting and never-ending hobby.”

Sometimes a second spark bird is needed to reinvigorate a bird-watching hobby.

“People who watch birds for a long time seem to have multiple spark birds,” Frost said. “One gets you into it and then there are the others you see for the first time that keep you going.”

That second bird for her was a sandhill crane. On a New Year’s Day, she heard reports of cranes hanging out at Big Johnson Reservoir in Bluestem Prairie Open Space.

“It was a cold, misty, yucky day — not a fun day to be out birding,” she said. “But I was able to see them through the misty fog and had that cool feeling of discovering the birds again.”

Cinnamon Bergeron’s spark bird was a great horned owl. Bergeron, who leads birdwatching trips for Aiken Audubon Society, was living in Green Mountain Falls when she found her bewitching bird.

She’d been developing a new hobby of taking photos of birds and learning to identify them when her husband told her about a huge owl he’d seen nearby. For weeks she searched the area, hoping to see it, and when she finally did she captured its visage on film.

“My hands were shaking as I took the photo,” Bergeron said. “I was sure it was going to fly off before I could get the picture, but it just sat there and posed. I’ve taken lots of pictures of great horned owls since then, but none were as amazing as that first one. Ever since then I’ve been hooked on birding. It’s my favorite hobby.”

A Western tanager stole Linda Hodges’ heart, which is no surprise to anyone familiar with the tiny canary and crimson-colored works of art. Hodges, the conservation chair for Aiken Audubon Society, was hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park for the first time since she’d moved to Colorado almost 25 years ago, when she spotted one.

“The most stunning bird flew into a tree. It was black and yellow and red,” she said. “I was hypnotized. Some women walked by and I asked if they were familiar with the bird. One of them pulled out a bird book and she showed me the cover, which was a picture of a Western tanager. They still light a spark in me whenever I see them.”

Contact the writer: 636-0270