Birding at Home

In addition to observing and photographing birds out the windows of home, there are a few activities you can enjoy from an easy chair or at your home computer that will help to improve your birding skills, advance your interest levels, and increase your knowledge of birds, birding, and birding locations, while learning how these topics fit into the grand scheme of ecology and conservation. Birding at home may also include accumulating a library of bird books, using computer programs, and even collecting bird art in its many modes.

Birder’s Library
There are literally hundreds of books published about birds, and many more are produced especially for birders. Beginners may be satisfied with a field guide and a couple other reference books, but many birders collect books that lend new insights to their specialized interests. They compile a personal library that may include an assortment of field guides, both for North America, and for countries on every other continent. Other favorite book topics include state and national “where to go” birding guides, descriptions of bird families, and how to attract birds with feeders and nest boxes.

Another segment of many birders’ libraries are birding magazines. American birding magazines include four bi-monthly magazines – Birding, WildBird, Birder’s World, and Bird Watcher’s Digest, and 1 quarterly magazine, Living Bird. There are also a number of nature and nature-geographic magazines, including Audubon, National Wildlife and International Wildlife, and National Geographic magazines. Reading is a long-time national pastime, and reading about birds and birding destinations is a natural interest of all birders.

Computer Activities
A number of birding activities can be computerized, such as keeping track of your varied lists of birds ranging from day lists to your life list. A number of specialized programs are available to help you file your species lists and field notes. There are also some good computer programs that help you with visual and audio identification of birds.

Many fine web sites are available on the internet where you can learn more about birds, birding, and conservation efforts, along with an almost endless number of web pages that provide a wealth of itemized information. There are even some “virtual“ birding sites and internet tours of national and international birding hotspots.

E-mail-based computer list serves offer opportunities to monitor rare bird reports and interact with other birders. List serves automatically send you all communications by members of the service, but if you prefer not to receive a barrage of e-mails, you can always monitor them independently by periodically checking the variety of list serves state by state. Monitoring list serves is a great way to find out about rare bird sightings, and to monitor seasonal sightings, and usually, there are a few notices posted that inform readers about local birding events and club activities.

When it comes down to it, your computer can be a workshop or art studio where you can write stories about your field experiences, edit and file photos, and use computer programs to draw or “paint,” and more.

These days, computers also provide us with amazing opportunities to use photo lab programs and photo filing options. Photo ops include scanning, cropping, composing, lightening, brightening, and printing bird and birding photos, as well as preparing digital slide shows and Power Point presentations. It’s also fun to share your photos via e-mail correspondence.

What does the future hold for computerized birding? It’s exciting to imagine!

Bird Art
Many people, even non-birders, enjoy adding artwork that features birds to decorate their homes and offices. Bird art is represented in many mediums from realistic to abstract, and may include personal drawings or paintings, collector paintings, art prints and lithographs, photographs, sculptures, wood or stone carvings, etchings, ceramics, collector plates, and more. Art is truly in the eye of the beholder, but everyone appreciates the colors and lively actions of birds depicted in art.

Workshop Birding
Whether your workshop is in your basement, garage, or a spare room in your house, you can enjoy hours of fun, on your own or with children, building home-made nest boxes, feeders, small water features, and other backyard birding products. You will enjoy working with your hands, sharing your skills with family members, scout groups, school classes, or church groups, and birds will prosper from your efforts.

You can also build picture frames used to display artwork or photographs, decorative shelves to display collections of artwork, or you can even create your own artwork in your shop. Many birders create bird art, including wood carving, etching, painting, ceramics, sculptures, and more.