Bird Watching

Bird Watching Basics

If you are looking for a fun new hobby and enjoy being outdoors, try birdwatching. 

Equipment needed is minimal and relatively inexpensive, mostly consisting of binoculars and some bird identification books.  Once started, you will find it a fun hobby that can last you a lifetime. Keeping track of the different birds that you have seen makes birdwatching a lot more enjoyable and improves your bird identification skill.  If you wish to associate with others that share your hobby, try contacting a local chapter of the Audubon Society using the internet.  You will discover that chapter locations are numerous.  Experienced birders might suggest viewing areas to spot hard to find species.  Once you start getting good at birdwatching, many birds can be recognized by their distinct species calls, which will help guide you to where to look. 

Some birdwatchers recommend logbooks that allow you to categorize your sightings to fit your lifestyle.

Suggested categories of keeping track of your sightings might include local birds, yearly sightings, trips, species you still need to look for, birds of prey, migrations, game birds, or other listings that fit your activity. You may even find yourself planning vacations that fit in with your hobby.  We have taken trips to Nebraska to see sandhill cranes during peak migration and in the process treated ourselves to an outing where a local entrepreneur took us to where we could view prairie chickens and sharp tail grouse perform mating dances on their chosen lek site.   His promise of being able to take us close enough photos of the rituals with a normal camera turned out to be both accurate and exciting.  We also found it worthwhile and informative to drive to Boise to tour the World center for Birds of Prey.  If you time your tour there right, you may even get to see a falcon capture prey as part of their program.  March 19th is when the swallows return to Mission San Juan Capistrano in California as they have for 100 years.  Don’t forget to mark the date on your calendar as this is also a great time of year to travel. 

Seeing birds at home can be interesting. We try to increase our opportunity to do so by making our backyard bird friendly, so we do not use pesticides.

World Wildlife Federation recognizes our back yard as Certified Wildlife Habitat partially because of this practice. Maintaining a goldfish pond offers water to the thirsty, and occasionally, sometimes inadvertently, food for the hungry. We offer birdfeeders to local birds including suet, hummingbird feeders, and feature an actual birdhouse tree with over 20 different style birdhouses available to offer birds that wish to stay at our year around accommodations.   We are fortunate to have lots of flowers, trees plus a ravine to attract a wide variety of birds.  Feeder regulars seem to attract others too.  We have spotted quail, pheasant, great blue heron, mourning dove, eagle, barred owl, crow, blue jay, pileated woodpeckers and a few others frequenting our feeders.

Back yard bird feeding is not without its downside however.  Squirrels and rats tend to enjoy the food put out for birds, so make sure you protect it with metal containers when stored outside.  Wasps enjoy sugar from hummingbird feeders, so make sure you wipe up and/or dilute any spills, and your fishpond will likely be raided.  Even our local barred owl has been seen carrying off a snack.  Once a blue heron or kingfisher locate your goldfish you can plan on frequent trips to a pet store to keep your pond stocked with fish.  Fortunately, goldfish are inexpensive.   Most birdhouses need to be equipped with cleanout bottoms to keep birds coming back and may need to be serviced once a year if they have been used.  

Soon your new hobby will allow you to impress your neighbors with expressions like “Did you see that Spotted Towhee yesterday?”