My husband has always had a great love and respect for wildlife and has a great knowledge of their ways and habits. But a little Ruffed Grouse had him scratching his head. One day as my husband was walking along a path near a stand of poplar trees, he heard a rustling...
These simple Laws, which every birder will experience at some point, were put together by Cody Burkett, of Phoenix, AZ. The First Law of Birding The greater the time spent searching for a rarity, the greater the chances it will be sitting on your car when you return...
Seriously, if you read the other two articles about how to determine if you’re a birder, then you already know you are. Now you’re just here to see how many other people you can fit into the bird watcher category. Because we are everywhere. You spend a lot...
If you’ve read the previous article (“How to Tell if You Are a Birder”) and are still not quite sure if you, or someone you know, is a true birder, here are a few more criteria to consider. Personally, I think the fact you read the first article and...
There is no way to identify a birdwatcher based on their economic status, ethnic background, social status, age, gender or even their clothes. This is because the community of birdwatchers includes people from every conceivable group in human society. However, there...
The primary goal of a Breeding Bird Atlas is to determine the distribution of all species which are breeding within a given area. But an atlas can also produce a wealth of additional environmental information. The following article, which is adapted from a piece...
A breeding bird atlas is a book which describes all of the birds that have been recorded breeding within a specific region. This book is assembled from a very large collection of records compiled by birdwatchers in that region during a specific time period. To do...
One of the questions asked by participants in citizen science programs is, “How useful are the data that I’m collecting?” Well, if you were the only person participating in the project, the honest answer would be, “Not very useful at...
Citizen science is the term for scientific projects in which the average citizen can take part. The project itself is set-up and monitored by professional biologists and scientists but much of the field work contribution, in the form of collected data, comes from...
Every birdwatcher, no matter their skill level, runs into problems with bird identification. While expert birders will only be troubled by the occasional bird, novice birders may find a challenge with almost every species which flies by. And even for the experts, who...
There are four main traits about bird that will help you to quickly determine which group a particular bird species belongs to. With some species, it is possible to use just one of these features to arrive at a successful identification. For example, duck species can...
One of the frustrations that many novice birders run into is the tendency to mis-identify a lot of the birds they see, especially those birds which belong to the more difficult groups, such as the sparrows and flycatchers. This is not surprising since there can be,...
Is bird identification a skill, an art or just good science? Well, in fact, it’s a combination of all three. For instance, it takes some skill to tell one species of warbler from another, whereas distinguishing between juvenile Empidonax flycatchers is an art...
Every hobby develops its own slang, the language by which the hobbyists most easily communicate with each other. Birdwatching is no different. In fact birdwatching may have more slang than most past-times due to both its popularity and the fact that birders come from...
Even if you have the best binoculars and field guides that money can buy, they are useless if that bird not only won’t come out of the bushes, but it also refuses to sing. And getting only occasional glances at the grayish-brown blob as it slips quietly through...
No matter where you are birdwatching, you are participating in an activity which affects a wild animal, whether it be the sparrows in your backyard or a rare warbler in a remote, old-growth forest. In either case, it is incumbent upon the birdwatcher to realize that...
There are no rules in birdwatching, no laws, and no commandments. It is simply a hobby that you can practice anywhere, and at any time. That being the case, there are some guidelines which everyone should follow in the interest of courtesy and civility, not to mention...
Birdwatchers are fortunate when it comes to the naming of birds. While every living species on earth has a unique scientific name, most of them have no associated common name. Which means that if you want to discuss some obscure fish or an insect, chances are you will...
While scientists have worked hard over the last three centuries to describe and classify living organisms such that each distinct species would be known by a unique name, there are many species which have more than one (and in some cases, several) common names. This...
There are eighteen species of owls in North America. Some species are resident and do not migrate (e.g., the Great Horned Owl) while others migrate long distances (e.g., the Burrowing Owl nests in southern Canada and winters in Mexico). Vision The eyes of owls are 10X...
