We enjoy birding during a variety of other outdoor activities, including cycling, hiking, and auto touring. Birding is an absorbing activity that attracts people from all walks of life and all age groups. Spring brings are flush of bird activity ranging from migration to nesting. Among the migrating birds you may find in your area this May, watch for a Swainson’s Thrush. Bodies of water are a big attraction for many birds, and many birders. Geese are among the most obvious waterfowl you may find, such as this pair of Brant.

BIRDING is many things to many people – including many tens of millions of Americans! For some of us birding is a lifestyle, an ever-present part of our lives. For some, it’s the action at feeders outside their window, the birds along the golf course, or the diversity of birds found at an area park or a national wildlife refuge. But for all of us, birds provide an interest that draws our attention and inspires a lively connection to nature that we enjoy sharing with family, friends, and fellow birders.

Birding includes all kinds of outdoor activities, including identifying, listing, and censusing the species we see, photographing birds; birding while hiking, cycling, auto touring, canoeing, kayaking, backpacking and camping. We also enjoy birding through drawing and painting birds, participating in big days and birding festivals, assisting with citizen science field studies, traveling to wildlife havens in other states or even other countries to explore new locations with distinctive birds – birding is many things to many people!

Birding also includes aspects of our home life, such as attracting birds by providing food and water, and landscaping our yards with flowering plants, shrubs, and trees to provide food, shelter, escape cover, and nesting sites. We also install bird houses for cavity nesting birds to utilize in our yards and in the field.

Inside our homes we assemble libraries of field guides, birding books, and birding magazines, and we display bird-inspired drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures, and ceramics as home decor. Our computers provide access to a remarkable wealth of information about birds from a variety of websites, and we create files where we keep birding records and digital photos, and use specialized programs that aid our birding endeavors.

We can even add bird-oriented improvements to our work sites and businesses, whether that may be adding some bird-friendly landscaping or a decorative hummingbird feeder or water feature outdoors, or adding a piece of bird art in a hallway. There are even some restaurants and other businesses that have installed a line-up of decorative bird feeders and water features outside large display windows that attract a variety of beautiful birds; birds that in turn attract people to the businesses. Some people even choose bird-related occupations – birds, birds, birds.

Our pocket cellphones provide us with internet access in most locations we go, to check electronic communications, visit websites, and use birding apps that aid us in identifying species by sight and sound in the field, or almost anywhere we go. And in a pinch we can take a photo or video with our cell’s camera to document a rare bird sighting or behavior.

We hope The Birding Wire helps to inspire you to expand your birding horizons, and to improve your understanding and interests in birds. This month, plan a special trip to a birding location beyond your normal range. Take your binoculars, your camera, and keep field notes – and enjoy the great outdoors! Text friends and family while you’re in the field and include a selfie of you surrounded by nature! Enjoy your own yard and neighborhood too, ‘cuz birds will catch your attention wherever you go!

Article and photos by Paul Konrad

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