Birding Recs

In Holly’s words:

Everyone comes to birds differently. If you’re looking for ways to get more involved in the bird world, here’s what I recommend!

1) Watch online bird cams.

I began my birding journey by watching birds online. My coworkers recommended a few different bird cams to me, including an NYU Hawk Cam that I believe is no longer in existence. I later found more cams through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The Cornell FeederWatch Cam was super helpful in learning my backyard birds (and getting to see what they looked like up close).

2) Sign up for FeederWatch.

FeederWatch is a program that lets you report the bird species that come to your feeder from the months of November to April. Thousands of people across the US participate, so scientists use the data to understand trends in birds’ wintertime habits.

During my first FeederWatch season, I was living in a second-floor apartment, but I bought one of those bird feeders that suction to the outside of your window. I was shocked to find that birds actually liked it! I got lots of black-capped chickadees and house finches and was immensely entertained all winter.

3) Go on bird outings.

My first ever bird outing was called a “Bird and Nature Adventure” through Madison Friends of Urban Nature. We rode in a pontoon on Lake Monona and saw lots of bank swallows. I was so impressed with our guide - he was able to tell the difference between birds in flight! I didn’t know people could do that!

Over the years I also started attending bird outings with the Madison Chapter of the Feminist Bird Club. That’s where I met most of my birding friends.

Outings are great for learning new identification tricks as well as for exploring places you might not be familiar with. No matter what outing I go on, I try to make it a goal to learn just one thing, whether it’s a new bird fact I didn’t know before, a tip about where to find birds in my area, or a new bird sound.

4) Volunteer.

I first volunteered with the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance in 2019. Every Saturday, my husband and I went out to one of the land sanctuaries and learned about a new prairie plant, then helped collect seeds that would be used to restore prairies in the area.

Later, we also joined Bald Eagle Nest Watch. We watched an eagle nest once a week from January to July and recorded our observations about what was happening in the nest. I loved the program so much that I also signed up for the Kestrel Nestbox Monitoring Program, where I got to check a kestrel box once a week and eventually attend a kestrel banding session. In three years, my nest box never did attract a kestrel pair, but it was still fun to try.

Volunteering with local bird and nature orgs is a great way to get a different perspective on the birds around you.

5) If you have the means, invest in gear.

One of the unfortunate parts of birding is that, to see birds really well, it helps to have good binoculars. You can always bird by ear without gear, which is a delightful alternative to spending lots of money. But if you have the means to buy binoculars, they can really add to the experience. I got 10x42s when I started birding, and once I got used to using them–binoculars take a lot of practice–I started noticing EVERYTHING. Robins have white feathers under their tails! House finches have lines on their tummies! From that moment forward I started going on walks nearly every day, trying to find more birds.

If you’re looking for binoculars but not sure about the investment, I recommend checking out your local library or other local bird clubs; they often have binoculars available for borrowing. (See this article for details!) The Madison Chapter of the Feminist Bird Club even raised money to create birding backpacks with the Madison Public Library. All packs come with binoculars and custom bird guides that anyone with a library card can check out. For more info about birding backpacks, click here.

For a few years, my binoculars were enough for me. But soon I got that itch to take photos. I felt like I’d hit a wall; it was hard to learn fall warblers, for example, without being able to capture a quick photo and compare it to a reference guide later. But cameras are expensive! Eventually my husband did lots of research and was able to buy a refurbished Nikon D7500 and a Sigma lens. Now, taking photos has become a fun hobby for me, and it has really helped me learn some of the trickier bird IDs.

6) Download the apps.

I recommend starting with Merlin Bird ID. This app is so helpful and FREE. You can input certain criteria about a bird you’re seeing and it helps you narrow down a list of possible suspects. It also provides a list of the most likely birds you’ll find in your particular area on any given day. And the best part is its Sound ID feature, which allows you to record birdsong and is pretty darn good at identifying which birds are making which particular sounds. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a good place to start.

Then, once you’re a bit more confident at bird ID, you might try using eBird, which is also free.

eBird allows you to record a list of all the birds you see while you’re out birding, and that data is compiled on the eBird site and made available for public viewing. The Explore feature lets you search for your county or region, and then you can see what birds have been reported recently as well as a list of popular “hotspots” in that area. I recommend using the Explore feature to plan your own bird outings, especially if you’re not sure what parks to go to. I look at hotspots every time I go on vacation and plan my bird itinerary accordingly!

Aside from the Explore feature, eBird also keeps a list of your personal sightings and logs your lifelong birding stats. It counts how many species you see each year, so it’s a fun way to challenge yourself to see more next year. You can also submit your bird photos and recordings, which get saved to your profile and added to the Macaulay Library for other birders to appreciate.

A word of caution: When you submit an eBird checklist, you really want to be sure about the birds you’re reporting. If a bird you see is listed as “rare,” you’ll be asked to provide information (and maybe even photos) to support your claim, and your checklist will be flagged for review.

7) Read books.

Books can spark a deeper interest in birding. When I worked in publishing back in 2014, I read a proposal about bird migration, and it made me curious to know more. You can get a lot from a book that you can’t get from birding: the nuances of a particular bird ID, the science behind a bird’s behavior, the history of conservation efforts to save a particular bird and its habitat. And I’m a sucker for birder memoir, too.

If you want a good field guide for identifying birds, I’m a fan of the Sibley Guides. I also love The Warbler Guide by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle.

Some of my other favorites are listed below:

History/memoir:

Scott Weidensaul’s A World on the Wing; Esther Woolfson’s Corvus: A Life with Birds; Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s Mozart’s Starling

Essay/Poetry:

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass; Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac; Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s World of Wonders; Mary Oliver’s White Pine

8) Always be birding / always keep learning.

One of the reasons birding is so wonderful is that you can do it anywhere. Birds are all around us, and there’s always something new to learn, whether it’s a specific bird’s behavior, a new sound, or a previously unnoticed flower, tree, or insect in a bird’s habitat. I’m so grateful to have found this new and joyful hobby in adulthood–and I’m so excited for any bird-curious readers out there who might get to experience it all for the first time.

I hope our paths cross on a wooded trail some beautiful spring day, in one of my nature writing classes, or maybe even on my bird-themed Substack.