If you’ve always been a nature lover, perhaps you’ve already considered bird watching as a hobby. If it’s something that you’re looking to pursue, you probably already have an idea just how rewarding and relaxing it can be. Anyone can become a bird watcher; all it takes is a natural curiosity and a desire to get to know the natural environment.
Birds are such beautiful creatures, and you will never run out of exciting discoveries once you become an avid bird watcher. We’ve compiled five bird watching tips from veteran bird watchers in order to help you in your journey, but before we get into it, let’s consider what type of birding binoculars you might need for your hobby.
Choosing the Proper Equipment
There’s no stopping you from going out there and observing birds in their natural habitat. However, if you want to really get into the hobby, you’ll need just one main piece of equipment to get the job done: birding binoculars. This style of binoculars helps you see birds without getting so close that you scare them away. There are many different types of binoculars out there, and birding binoculars offer the perfect features that make them effective for bird watching. Birding binoculars come in two styles: Porro prism binoculars and roof prism binoculars.
Porro prism binoculars are generally bulkier and heavier. These are the most common binoculars with eyepiece lenses that are closer together compared to objective lenses. The alignment on these can often be faulty, given their manufacturing and design. Some of these will give you double vision if not properly aligned. If you’re looking to purchase this type of binoculars, make sure that you get to try them out ahead of time.
The other style of binoculars is roof prism binoculars. These are lighter and tend to cost more because of their quality. These are less prone to becoming misaligned and are also typically waterproof—something you’ll need if you want to birdwatch throughout the year. This is generally referred to as a spotting scope considering that there’s only one lens to look through versus two.
Five Tips from a Veteran Bird Watcher
1. Finding Birds
If you’re going to be a bird watcher, you should know where to look for birds. Birds can live in abundance in some places, but they can also be rare in other areas. You can easily attract birds to your immediate surroundings by placing feeders all around; otherwise, you can go to parks that offer feeders for birds. You can also refer to the National Audubon Associate to see what kinds of birds are native to your area.
2. Find the Right Time
Just like you need to find the right place to bird watch, you also need to figure out when the right time for bird watching is. Most birds tend to be active during transitional periods of the day. This means birdwatching it optimal just as the sun is about to go down or just when it’s about to come up. There are also breeds that are active during the middle of the day, and there are others that are completely inactive when it’s hottest. Even still, some birds are completely nocturnal.
3. Identifying Birds
Bird watching is no fun if you don’t know what breed of birds you’re watching. Bird watching is the best way to learn about the many different kinds of birds out there. Learning how to identify birds without any notes is half the fun of bird watching. Try identifying them just through their song—that’s a level of difficulty to aspire to.
4. Birding Ethics
If you’re going to become a serious bird watcher, you’ll need to abide by some birding rules and ethics. The protection and safety of birds should be a priority. No harm should ever come to the animals as a result of bird watching and learning the ethics of birding is a must for everyone who wants to pursue it as a hobby.
5. Join a Club
One of the best ways to become truly engaged in bird watching is to join a birding club. When you join a club, you surround yourself with people who have the same interests as you. Most of the time, you can also learn a lot from people who have been bird watching for a long time. Most people who bird watch know the best spots to go and the best times to watch. Join a birding club, learn as much as you can, and most important of all, have fun while you do it!