Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Birding – A Lifetime Experience Once a birder, always a birder!

Observing a Bald Eagle in flight, close, can be an inspiring experience that gives you a new appreciation for the importance of birding in your life.
The sight and sound of flocks of Snow and Ross’s Geese gives us all an adrenaline jolt and an exceptional connection to the marvels of birds.
Barn Swallows are remarkable fliers that can be a delightful part of your yard or neighborhood avifauna.



Once a birder, always a birder! There are millions of birders in the world, but I’ve never met a former birder. Birding is one of those activities that adds a new level of interest and a heightened level of awareness to our lives. It’s a very diverse activity that you can adapt to fit your personal interests and lifestyle in many different ways. Birding is an activity that seemingly has no bounds; one in which you continue to learn more about day after day, year after year. Experience counts, and birding is a lifetime experience!

Expanding Your Birding Horizons

Most people enjoy birds and birding as a nice escape from the trappings of modern-day life – a way to get in touch with nature, to feel the earth beneath your feet, the wind in your face, and marvel at the beauty and wonders of wildlife, especially the most common, diverse and abundant wildlife – birds. Some people dedicate their lives to studying birds, sharing their interests in birds, or providing safe havens for birds. Birds help to define these folks and their focus in life.

Learning More
If you are interested in expanding your interest in birds, at whatever level, there are many exceptional books that provide expansive information about birds that you can buy or borrow. There are also many magazines, including this electronic magazine, that provide information and inspiration. Today, the internet provides seemingly unlimited resources about birds, their life histories, and where to find them. You may even 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 biology of birds or other subjects. Check out some of the on-line classes offered by the Cornell Lab too. Joining a local birding group or Audubon chapter can also be informative, informational, and socially enjoyable.

Travel

Birding inspires you to visit new locations and explore landscapes for the birds they attract. A birding site may be near home or across the state, in 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 forests, grasslands, wetlands, mountains, deserts, beaches, tundra, or tropical woodlands – different habitats as well as changes in latitudes provide new birding opportunities among different avian communities. Each environ provides a new combination of species during different seasons.

Finding new species is part of the fun, and certainly part of the attraction of birding! Your interest in birding may be the lure of observing wildlife in wild places – down the road or around the world. Birders may be rafting down a rainforest-lined river on one trip, and hiking across Arctic tundra during the next trek. The options are endless and, by all means, take lots of photos.

Photography
Bird photography is one of the most advanced and most satisfying of all birding endeavors, and every nature enthusiast should try to reap the rewards of documenting the trips they take and the exciting birds they find with their camera. In addition to photographing birds, you will photograph other wildlife, landscapes, people, flowers, or trees among a seemingly unending list of potential subjects. Many digital cameras also provide a video option, so if you prefer action photography, you’re in luck – even if it’s with your cellphone. Plus, video provides a sound option for recording bird songs and calls. Fun stuff indeed!

At Home, Work, School and More

Of course, the biggest and best way to keep in touch with birds closer to home, is to keep your feeding station complete with a water feature and rotating the menu you offer as different species come and go with the changing seasons. Landscaping with birds in mind – providing shelter, food, and nesting sites – should be a part of every year’s home improvements. Hopefully, you and your family can also appreciate some level of backyard birding at work and school. A simple bird bath, suet feeder or hummingbird feeder are easy to maintain and will attract a little more birdlife to any location and provide a forum for sharing interests and information about birds with others.


Professional Careers and Volunteering
There are many ways to pursue a career – or to volunteer – that includes a focus on wild birds, ranging from working as a field biologist to a nature center instructor, refuge staff, tour guide, wildlife artist, photographer, writer, operating a birding-based retail store, and more. The rewards of fulfilling your true ambitions, working outdoors, and sharing your enthusiasm for birds with others are great indeed.

Conservation
Our birding opportunities rely on appropriate acreages of habitats that birds need 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, and/or by informing and inspiring community members to help in supporting 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 for children and adults alike.

The quiet sense of euphoria you can feel when surrounded by the natural world, reveling in the many ways we enjoy birding, and embracing efforts to protect and improve the world around us for birds and people is ultimately what a simple introduction to birding can foster. Benefit from and enjoy all your birding endeavors!

Article and photographs by Paul Konrad

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