Field Birding

Birding afield requires habitat that attracts birds, as well as access to the area – either visually or physically. It also requires some special basic equipment. But beyond these simple requirements, there is an exciting assortment of ways to enjoy birding, one of America’s most popular outdoor activities.

Basic Birding Equipment
The primary object of birding is to identify the birds you see. This requires two basic pieces of equipment – a field guide and binoculars. A good field guide provides you with illustrations of all the birds found in your region or across North America north of Mexico, as well as range maps and information about how to distinguish one species from another. Field guides usually feature one of two kinds of illustrations – either artwork or photographs – in color, of course. Your personal preferences will probably help you to choose one, just as you will choose between the different field guides available. Then too, most advanced birders utilize a number of books to cross-reference their sightings.

Binoculars are likewise essential to get good magnified looks at birds you find. While most people are initially attracted to small, light-weight, inexpensive binoculars, the best rule of thumb for selecting binoculars is to get the largest, heaviest, most expensive binoculars you can afford. To start with, a $30 pair of 7- or 8-power (7x or 8x) binoculars will serve you well. But try a $300 pair, and a $700 pair, just so you appreciate the merits of good optics and how they can help you in the field.

To find just the right binoculars, ask other birders if you can try their binoculars. As a rule, birders are happy to let you try their equipment, and are particularly helpful, offering suggestions about certain features and their personal preferences. Another option is to go to a well-stocked sporting goods store to try a variety of models, or you may be able to try a variety of models at a birding festival or other birding event. Eventually, you should find just the right binoculars.

Of course, there is other equipment that birders use, such as spotting scopes, cameras with telephoto lenses, and computer software (which we will describe below), but the two basic equipment requirements for anyone are a field guide and binoculars.

Birding by Ear
Birding by Sight is an obvious means of identifying birds, but as you advance as a birder, you will become more and more attuned to bird songs and calls. Soon you will begin to identify the songs of several birds you become most familiar with. Eventually, you will realize that learning the songs of different species is every bit as interesting as identifying birds by sight. It’s tougher to learn all the songs and calls, but it is a rewarding aspect of birding.

Many bird songs will come to you naturally, by hearing them over and over in your yard or in the field. There are also a number of ways you can learn bird songs with the aid of pre-recorded audio cassette tapes and CDs, and by using computer software that provides both audio and visual information. These aids are invaluable for learning bird songs, or for trying to track down the singer of an unknown song.

Field Notes
One of the most important practices of birders is to keep good field notes. It’s fun to keep track of what birds you see, behavioral observations you witness, seasonal information that may be noteworthy, and any field sketches you may wish to make as part of your field notes. A small note pad that fits into your pocket may be appropriate for keeping notes, or you may wish to keep your records on single sheets of paper that you file by date in a special folder. The advantage of keeping a loose page for each entry is that if you lose it, you only lose one page; however, if you loose your notebook, all your field notes are lost.

Another option is to record your field notes on computer, either with a personalized program or a commercial software package created just for keeping birding records. Keeping field notes can be as simple or complex as you wish, but getting in the habit of keeping good field notes will make you a better birder, and provide valuable records you can refer to in the future when you want to compare seasonal notes, annual data, or check when to expect certain migrants that pass through your area.

An extension of keeping field notes is to write descriptive accounts about memorable birding trips or exciting outdoor encounters with wildlife. These stories may be written for your own enjoyment, but you can also want to share them with friends and family. You may even aspire to publishing one in a bird club newsletter or a birding magazine.

Listing
A favorite activity of many birders is to keep running lists of the birds they see. The most common list birders keep is a “life list,” a tally of all the birds identified during their lifetime, or at least since the started birding. The list may also include notes documenting sightings in a number of locations, dates, and other field information. But a life list is just the tip of the iceberg. Some birders keep day lists, trip lists, country lists, state lists, county lists, a yard list, office list, photo list, etc. Are you getting the idea? Right, there is no limit to the number of lists some people keep, and that’s part of the fun. How many lists do you keep?

Of course, there are a number of computer software programs that will help you to keep track of your lists of lists. These are great help for listers, but the key to making the software work for you is to be sure you have the right program to begin with, because the last thing you want to do is re-enter all the information if you decide to change software programs. Happy listing to you!

Rare Bird Hotlines
If you are looking to add to your life list, or any other lists, you probably already know about rare bird hotlines and rare sighting e-mail list serves. Every state has a telephone hotline you can call to learn about vagrant or off-course birds, and there are other hotlines for specific hotspots, cities, or regions within a given state. Likewise, most of these hotlines are replicated on internet web sites, providing an amazing communication network for birders to monitor the ebbs and tides of songbird migrations, or winter eruptions of birds, such as finches or owls.

Some hard-core listers monitor hotlines on a national basis, always ready to drive 7 hours cross-country to search for a rare bird to add to their life list or jetting cross-country for a glimpse or photo opportunity of a species never seen before within the borders of this country. Every activity has its extremes; birding does too!

Censusing
A simple list of the birds you see at a given place, on a given day, during a certain period, can easily be improved by keeping species by species counts of all the birds you see. Such census information can be valuable when checking seasonal totals of species, or comparing year to year. Even a simple abundance designation can be helpful, such as abundant, common, uncommon, or rare, but you should also assign a number count for each abundance grouping, such as more than 100, more than 50, more than 15, less than 5.

One fun aspect of censusing is trying to accurately estimate the number of birds in a flock. Begin practicing with small flocks, counting by twos or by fives. For larger flocks, count 10 and get a feeling for what 10 looks like; then multiply that group of 10 by tens. That is, count 10, then 100 (ten tens), then 1000 (ten one-hundreds), etc. The more you practice the better you will become at estimating the numbers of individuals in large flocks of birds. One last tip: most people underestimate large numbers of birds.

Behavioral Observations
Birds offer amazing opportunities to study their species-specific behaviors ranging from territorial songs and aerial mating displays to nesting behaviors and other visual and audio activities. Seasonal behavior adds to the interest level when you observe spectacular migrations of waterfowl, shorebirds, songbirds, and others in time-sensitive flights; the appearance of wintering species, or the odd vagrant you may find out of its normal range.

Keeping in-depth field notes is paramount to fully appreciating and eventually understanding bird behavior. Photography adds much to behavioral observations, although still photography doesn’t really do behavioral displays justice, so opt for a camcorder if you become a behavior buff. The behavior of birds is what brings life to these amazing animals. Share their zest for life and the processes of nature!

Birding in the Great Outdoors
One of the great things about birding is that you can enjoy birding while participating in many other outdoor activities, such as cycling, hiking, backpacking, camping, canoeing, auto-touring, and other recreational options. Birding can be a secondary or primary focus while working out, driving to a friend’s home, or camping in a favorite location. That’s part of the fun of birding; you can enjoy it almost anywhere with an outdoor view, at any time of the day, and even at night.

Just pack your binoculars, field guide, and camera into a backpack and hop on your bike for some cycling exercise. Plan your route to go through a nature park or along a lakeshore or beach, and you will likely be rewarded with some birds to check out along the way. You can even leave your wheeled transport and go hiking for a distance before resuming your bike ride.

Almost as easy is canoeing or kayaking quietly down a waterway – a slow-moving river, or tranquil lake – to see what birds you see and hear along the way. You will be amazed at how closely you can approach some birds in a water vessel, but be careful not to scare birds that may be feeding or nesting in wetlands.

For a weekend excursion, plan a backpacking hike to a remote camp site. From there you can take shorter hikes in search of birds amid meadows filled with wildflowers, to rarely visited lakes and streams, or to a glen amid an enchanted forest.

Many of us are constantly watching for birds as we drive from one location to another. Often these drives provide incidental sightings of birds, but often we plan a specific auto route to a favorite birding destination or two. Some wildlife refuges even have organized auto tours that provide periodic stopping points with natural history information provided. The popularity of auto touring has even led to new tourism promotions – birding drives and birding trails.

Individual and Social Birding
Birding can be a personal endeavor; an opportunity to slip away by yourself to a special place where you can breathe the fresh air and listen to the silence of the world, broken only by the beauty of a warbler’s song. Or it can be a social activity in which you can share your interest in birds and your passion for the outdoors with family, friends, or fellow birders.

There are even social opportunities centered around birding: You can join a birding club, or participate in organized field trips, birding festivals, and guided tours. Sometimes, birding is not just for the birds, it can be an opportunity to share time with special people in your life, or new people who share your interests in birds and the great outdoors.

Birding Clubs
There are literally hundreds of birding clubs across the country (and around the world). Some are very focused on birds and birding; others have a broader agenda, such as Audubon chapters that address a broader range of wildlife and conservation topics. Bird clubs are a great way to share your birding experiences with others with like interests. They usually offer regular field trips to participate in, and monthly meetings usually feature a guest speaker and social interactions. All ages of people are welcome, and all levels of birders are involved. In fact, bird clubs provide beginners with great opportunities to learn the local birds, and visit the local birding hotspots, all with some of the best birders in the area who are ready and willing to share their experience and enthusiasm.

Citizen Science
There can be a fine line between birding observations and true science. If you keep a census of all the birds you see in a given area at a given time, you have conducted simple science-oriented field work. If you wish to get involved on a deeper level, you can get participate in citizen-science projects, such as Christmas Bird Counts, Breeding Bird Surveys, BirdSource projects, and others to make your time in the field even more valuable.

Conservation
Our birding opportunities rely on appropriate acreages of habitats that birds rely on for food, shelter, and nesting. Dedicated birders help to protect, manage, and improve critical habitats on local, state, national, and even international levels. This can be achieved through your personal activities, by voting, by lobbying your elected officials when necessary, by contributing funds, or by inspiring community members to help in such endeavors.

In addition to protecting birds and bird habitats, conservation projects can be important to increasing income from birding-based tourism in a community, and they can provide an important sense of community value to children and adults alike. Leaders in bird-related conservation work include Audubon, the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Foundation, and the American Birding Association.

Ornithology
Ornithology is the branch of science that studies birds – everything from the structure and function of feathers to intercontinental migrations and nesting behavior. If you are ready to expand your interest in birds, there are a number of exceptional books that provide expansive information about the Order of Birds that you can buy or borrow and peruse or read.

You may be interested in enrolling in a class offered by a local college, or you may prefer a shorter seminar or workshop that will give you an introduction to the professional study of birds. You can also opt to study at home on your own time schedule by enrolling in a mail- or computer-based course, such as Cornell University’s home study course in ornithology. If you are really determined, and ready to make an ultimate commitment, you can pursue a college degree in wildlife biology with an emphasis on ornithology.

Professional Careers
Today, there are many ways to pursue a career that includes a focus on wild birds, ranging from a field ornithologist to a nature center instructor, refuge manager, writer, photographer, tour guide, wildlife artist, and more. You will need a dedication to your interests that may compromise your earning power, but the rewards of fulfilling your true ambitions, working outdoors, and sharing your enthusiasm for birds with others are great indeed.

Photography
Bird photography is one of the most satisfying of all birding endeavors, and every nature enthusiast should try to reap the rewards of documenting exciting encounters and satisfying destinations on film. To encounter a bird at close quarters, or to approach one closely, with good light and the right equipment is part of the fun, as is the suspense of whether you will successfully photograph your quarry.

Sometimes your photo attempts are thwarted by a wary subject, dim light, or an unexpected distraction. Other times, your photos only serve to show that you were not close enough to fill the photo frame, your composition was not quite right, or the direction of incident light created unwanted shadows. This happens to beginners – and professionals – all the time; it’s part of the photography process. But you learn from each effort, and when you are successful the rewards of a good photograph of a flock of birds taking flight against a pleasing background can be almost as exhilarating as the experience itself.

Photography requires an additional assortment of equipment in addition to the usual optics and field guide for traditional birding endeavors. This will probably require an additional expenditure, but no investment will serve you better to get the most from your birding experiences. And in addition to photographing birds, you can photograph other wildlife, landscapes, people, flowers, or trees among a seemingly unending list of potential subjects. Standard 35mm equipment may include a camera body and zoom lens, but may also include a telephoto lens, tripod, flash and, of course, film.

The newest format in photography, digital photography, requires no film. Instead, digital images are stored on computer discs or memory cards that are down-loaded into a computer. Some digital cameras have impressive zoom lenses that work well for bird photography. A great addition to digital cameras is an on-camera photo monitor that permits you to see the digital image almost immediately after you snap it. This permits you to review the photo and save it, or delete it and try again if the image doesn’t meet your standards. It’s tough to beat that option!

Photos are down-loaded into a software program in your home computer or a laptop, where you can easily crop and manipulate the images you record in the field. How exciting it is that the old dark room has been replaced by a home computer! Even if you prefer the quality of the 35mm format, you can always scan slides and prints using a computer scanner to convert them into digital images. Then you can create computer slide shows or Power Point presentations, and file everything away in organized computer files without taking up closet space. It’s a great age we live in, for sure!

If you prefer real-life action photography, you can also enjoy video photography using videotape, 8mm film, or digital formats. Video provides vivid reproduction of activities witnessed in the field that appeals to many people, and recording the sounds of birds during the filming process is doubly satisfying. You can use your computer to edit your film and send action-packed video of your latest birding trip to friends and family or post video streams with photo scans on your personal web site. Fun stuff indeed!

Travel
Birding inspires you to visit new locations and to explore their landscapes for the birds they attract. A birding site may be near home or across the state; to a neighboring state or another part of the nation. The site may be a park, refuge, or private land, and any type of habitat including woods, prairie, wetlands, forests, mountains, deserts, scrub, beaches, tundra, or tropical forest. Each area provides a new combination of species during a certain hour of a given day and during a given season.

Finding new species is part of the fun, and certainly part of the attraction! Birders spend billions of dollars traveling to exciting destinations each year. Some even travel beyond our borders to new countries, and even to new continents. Birders may be hiking across the Arctic tundra on one trip, and rafting down a tropical rainforest-lined stream the next. Birding may be the focus of a wanderlust, or the lure of observing wildlife in wild places – down the road or around the world.

One of the most exciting aspects of birding travel is flying beyond your country’s border. When you get off the plane, you begin using a new field guide, probably filled with birds you have never seen before, birds you have never heard sing or call before, birds that will provide a memorable collection of experiences. You start a new country list, observe new behaviors, and fill a notebook with interesting notes from the field. Beyond birding, you will be engulfed in a new nation to learn about, with different people, cultures, history, architecture, and probably a different language. Each trip abroad is exciting beyond imagination. By all means, take lots of photos, and Enjoy!

Guided Tours
When you travel beyond your usual birding range, you may have greater success finding birds and identifying the birds you see if you employ the services of a guide – even for just a day or two – and especially if you travel beyond American borders. Guides will know where to go to see the birds you are most interested in, they plan itineraries, provide a vehicle and driver, book where to stay in advance, and provide field lunches and drinks. Guides will know the language, people, and territory well, and they can caution you about any dangers, such as poisonous spiders and snakes, or lions, tigers, and bears. Guides are great if you prefer to be a follower rather than a leader, if you are more comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings with professional assistance, or if you are concerned about safety factors.

Long-term (a week – more or less) land-based tours often are arranged as roving tours in which you visit a number of locations during the tour, traveling cross-county and staying at a number of lodges, hotels, or other facilities along the way. These trips usually provide the best opportunities to study birds in a number of habitats, and your experiences will bloom along the way.

If you are more of a home-body, even when traveling abroad, you may prefer staying at a lodge. A lodge will permit you to stay in one room or cabin for the duration of your stay so you can unpack and relax as much as you wish. A birding-based lodge will have regular tours planned to nearby sites, and usually, the grounds surrounding the lodge are filled with exciting species to observe and photograph.

Some smaller specialized cruise ship companies offer another option to vagabond birders, providing escorted service to distant locations such as the South Pacific, Caribbean, Aleutian Islands, and Antarctica. Many cruises emphasize island-hopping itineraries, but some make periodic stops along the coast, such as along the coasts of Costa Rica and Panama, including the Panama Canal. Cruises provide the excitement of stopping at little-visited destinations while offering a high degree of comfort along the way. Traveling on some cruise ships is like cruising aboard a 4-star hotel, complete with chefs, maids, bartenders, and other service personnel, including experienced guides who take you birding at remote destinations and give informal lectures and slide shows on the ship while at sea. Cruise ship birding offers a unique experience – try it you’ll like it.

Birding Drives and Birding Trails
The newest developments in birding-based tourism are birding drives and birding trails. The term “birding trail” is something of a misnomer, as these projects are actually auto tours routed along established roads rather than “trails” as we usually think of them. So, in essence, birding drives and birding trails are the same entities with different names. Nonetheless, they are being established across America on local, regional, and even state-wide levels.

A birding trail or drive links birding sites along a network of roadways. They provide basic information for birders and other nature enthusiasts about where to go and how to get there, along with a tourism-based infrastructure that interested people can follow, visiting one birding site after another in succession. Birding sites usually are public lands such as wildlife refuges, state parks, wildlife management areas, waterfowl production areas, and others.

Usually, a good map shows the route from birding site to site, which may be augmented with written directions. Along the routes, communities provide essential services, including motels, restaurants, service stations, grocery stores, and sporting goods businesses. The mapped route provides visitors and locals alike with auto-touring opportunities, and the increase in tourism that results feeds local businesses all along the trail routes.

In addition to a map or series of maps, a good birding trail provides information about each birding site, the kinds of habitat at each site, the birds that can be seen in season, and recreational options such as hiking trails, camping facilities, and canoe rentals.

If you are ready to try a new dimension in travel, try following a birding trail or birding drive in your area, or in another state. You will certainly be introduced to some new birding sites, as well as plenty of local color.

Birding Festivals
Since the early 1990s, when only a handful of birding festivals were established, the number of birding festivals has increased by hundreds. The participation in each birding festival is different, ranging by as much as 50 to 5,000, depending on the venue.

On one level, all birding festivals are very good. They bring attention to birds and the habitats they depend on in the area; they promote the community, refuge or organization that sponsors them; and they provide participants the opportunity to join in field trips and learn about birds at instructional seminars and workshops.

Some festivals have keynote speakers, some have a banquet event, and some have expos, in which equipment manufacturers, publishers, birding businesses, and tour companies stock booths for festival-goers and the public to visit.

I always say: “Birders are my favorite people,” and each time I attend a birding festival that statement is underscored hundreds of times. Birding festivals offer a great forum to share your interest in birds and birding with others of your kind. It’s always great to visit with people from other towns and other states, to discuss favorite experiences and trips, and to share new experiences at festival headquarters or on field trips. Which birding festival will you be attending next?

Competitive Birding
When does birding become a sport? When it is fashioned into an organized competition, of course. For more 2 decades, the World Series of Birding has attracted the best birders in the land to Cape May, New Jersey, to compete in teams in a 24-hour birding marathon on the first Saturday of May. The top teams tally more than 200 species as they work their way across the Garden State, raising money by the bird for worthy conservation organizations and projects. That’s right, it’s actually competition for conservation, and the 50-plus teams raise a grand total of more than $500,000 each year! Not bad for a day of birding during the peak of spring migration.

Building on the success of the World Series, The Great Texas Birding Classic was developed to run the Gulf gauntlet of Texas from the Mexican border at Brownsville to the Louisiana border during 3 days of competition in late April. Teams compete to earmark funding for pre-selected conservation projects – and bragging rights for the next year.

Conservation Events
The International Migratory Bird Day is a widely popular conservation event held each year during the second Saturday of May. Events include field trips, refuge and nature center open houses, school projects, and other formal and informal activities across North America to bring awareness to the 340 species of birds that migrate from the neotropics of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America to return each spring to their nesting ranges in America and Canada.

Traditionally, birders, bird clubs, and Audubon chapters have held Big Days to raise money for their conservation interests. These are simply days selected when a group tries to find as many different kinds of birds during a single day (and night if they wish), bringing attention to the diversity of birds in the area, along with conservation goals.

Combining citizen science with conservation fund raising, one of the few fall birding events is held in Minnesota during the Great Minnesota River Birding Day. Teams of birders scatter across southern Minnesota within the expansive Minnesota River basin to tally all the birds they can find on the first Saturday of fall, emphasizing visits to sites selected for the Minnesota River Valley Birding Trail. Proceeds from the event are used to develop and improve the birding trail, 1 of 3 birding trails in Minnesota.