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Review: Backyard Birds – Looking through the Glass by Glen Aspeloff – part 1

A splendid little book for new birdwatchers

Many people start looking at birds in their backyards. The process of going beyond just feeding the birds to actually watching them and learn what they are, as well as get familiar with their habits, is what takes the bird-feeder to the next level to become a bird-watcher. Some, especially today in the digital camera age, also become bird photographers in the process.  Millions of people go through this process every year. Glen Apseloff of Ohio describes the process  in a lovely new book  called Backyard Birds -Looking Through the Glass.

The book is illustrated with 125 amazing photographs of birds which regularly occur at feeders in Eastern and Midwest US/Canada, so it can easily be used as a birdfeeder field guide.  I especially like  how all species are presented with descriptions of the habits of each, how to separate the sexes, what kind of seeds they prefer and any natural history or trivia connected to the species.  At the end of the book, there is also a mammal bestiary visiting the feeders as well as some common butterflies in the garden. All photographs are shot from inside Glen’s house through the window.

Glen sent me a copy to review some time ago, but rather than giving you only my opinion, I want to publish a few extracts of the book.  In this first part is the introductory text how Glen got into it. He was not a birder when he started this project, but he is now.  Sit back and enjoy!

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Through the Looking Glass – Inside-Out

Red-winged Blackbird male Glen Aspeloff

Male Red-winged Blackbird in the backyard

Every photograph in this book was taken from inside my house (in Powell, Ohio) through a closed window. This in part explains the title: Looking Through the Glass. But the title is intended to mean more than that. For most of my life, I viewed windows as simply something to let in light. I didn’t appreciate what was on the other side. I do now.

The title of this book is also a play on words of Lewis Carroll’s literary work, and it’s a metaphor. When Alice stepped through the looking glass, she entered a place of wonder. When I look through the windows of my house, I too experience that, and when you read this book, I hope the same thing happens to you.

The baseball player Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” Until recently, I didn’t do that, and I didn’t notice much around me. I had no clue how many species of birds could be found in my own backyard, and I didn’t know enough to distinguish one from another if they looked even remotely alike. To me, a sparrow was a sparrow. Not a song sparrow or a field sparrow or a house sparrow or a chipping sparrow. Just a sparrow. I had grown up with cardinals in the neighborhood (they’re the state bird of Ohio), but I never wondered how a juvenile of that species differed from an adult, or how juveniles of any species differed from adults. I had also never noticed that birds molt, and I never gave any thought to possible differences between winter and summer plumage, let alone the transition between the two. I’ve since learned the basics, or at least some of them, from books and from the internet, including web sites of state departments of natural resources, the Audubon Society, and the All About Birds site of Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The information I provide in this book is from those sources.

Winter wildlife in my backyard

Eastern Bluebird Glen Apseloff

Eastern Bluebird looking fluffy..
Glen writes: In the cold of winter, as shown here,
bluebirds frequently fluff their feathers to trap air between the
feathers and their body, for added insulation.

Until a couple of years ago, I believed central Ohio was relatively devoid of wildlife. With that misconception in mind, I traveled widely to photograph animals as far away as Madagascar, Botswana, New Zealand, Alaska, and even Antarctica. Usually I hired guides, and they showed me local fauna in natural settings, sometimes with stunning backdrops—the jungle, the ocean and mountains, glaciers. I never imagined that anything in Ohio could compare to that, to lemurs hanging from trees, or penguins jumping off icebergs. Certainly nothing in my own backyard could compare. But then a couple of years ago I faced an extended period without a vacation. As weeks turned into months, and one season into the next, I felt increasingly compelled to take out my camera and photograph something.  Anything.

That’s when I thought of what I might be overlooking. Backyard birds? Maybe, but how many birds can people really see in their own backyard? When I go to art festivals and find photographs of what look like backyard birds, the photographers invariably tell me they took the pictures in a state park or some other out-of-the-way place. Of course, people really do take pictures in their own backyards, but the best photographs I’ve seen have always been somewhere else.

So what about my backyard? Could I photograph anything there? I had serious doubts. Especially in the winter. It isn’t like Antarctica where you can just sit down and penguins waddle up to you and peck at your parka.

One thing I knew was that I did not want to spend a lot of time outside in the winter. The last time I did cold-weather photography, I thought I might get frostbite and cause permanent damage to my fingers, despite chemical hand warmers inside my gloves. I don’t mind sacrificing time, money, and comfort to photograph wildlife, but I draw the line at body parts.

Looking out the window for birds

Mourning Dove Glen Apseloff

Mourning Dove close up by Glen Aspeloff

However, outdoor photography typically takes place outdoors, and if it’s done in the winter, that means going out in the cold. Or does it? Instead of photographing birds the way countless other photographers do, by going out and finding them, what if I just stayed inside and waited for the birds to find me?

That’s how I came up with the idea for this project. One of my objectives with wildlife photography has always been to give people a better appreciation of nature. By photographing birds from inside my house, I could show others what they’re missing around them, and maybe I could motivate them to want to see more and to learn more. I could show people that working long hours and seeing daylight primarily through the windows of an office building or a house isn’t an excuse to ignore nature. I could show them that all they have to do is look outside. This was assuming, of course, that I could find birds to photograph.

With that goal in mind, I embarked on this project. It started as a calendar, not a book—a calendar of backyard birds photographed from inside my house, through closed windows. I wasn’t sure I could find a dozen different species, but I figured I could include pictures of both males and females for those that are sexually dimorphic, and then I might need as few as half a dozen. Eventually I should be able to find that many.

I used a handheld camera (no tripod or cable release for remote pictures) with no special filters, not even a polarized filter, and no flash. I wanted to show what people can see if they simply look outside their windows. I removed a couple of screens, put up decals to try to minimize the likelihood that birds would fly into the glass, and then I started observing. Because it was winter, with no plants to attract birds, I put out suet and bird seed in feeders on my back deck and experimented with different types. I learned that most birds seemed to prefer peanut-butter suet (especially with large pieces of peanuts) and definitely black-oil sunflower seeds. Many birds were also attracted to safflower seeds, and the smaller birds (including finches, buntings, and chickadees) seemed to prefer a mix of finch food with millet and sunflower seeds.

Like other full-time workers anywhere, I could find only limited opportunities to watch and photograph birds. I’ve never been good at standing still for extended periods, but I forced myself to spend time at the windows, and not just the ones with a view of the back deck. I began looking out the bathroom windows, the dining-room windows, and even the little panes of glass alongside my front door.

I’m seeing birds

My wife, Lucia, bought a book called Birds of Ohio Field Guide by Stan Tekiela, and I looked at the pictures to identify birds I saw outside. When I first flipped through the pages, I couldn’t believe such a wide variety of birds lived in Ohio. The book described more than a hundred of them, and in the introduction, the author mentioned that more than 400 different species have been recorded in Ohio. I found that especially difficult to believe. But then, after I started this project, everything changed. I began seeing birds— unusual and even exotic ones—through my windows: brilliant blue indigo buntings and other species that I thought existed only in the tropics, such as the scarlet tanager. I was amazed by how many birds I observed “just by watching.” Close to half of them, I had never seen in my life—northern flickers, ruby-throated hummingbirds, cedar waxwings, and a rose-breasted grosbeak, to name a few. Others I had seen but had never really noticed, like the multicolored iridescent European starlings that I had always thought were simply gray and black.

In an attempt to show people what they can see just by looking through their windows, I discovered what I had been missing for years, actually for decades. In this book, I’ll show you what that was. I’ve arranged the birds in alphabetical order by common name (e.g., “bunting, indigo” precedes “robin, American”) for lack of a better system. Whenever I introduce a bird, the name is in bold print. The first entry is a blackbird, more specifically a red-winged blackbird.

Red-winged Blackbird Glen Apseloff

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Glen’s book will soon be distributed (on trial) in Barnes and Noble bookstores, but  Backyard Birds: Looking Through the Glassis also available at Amazon.

Glen Apseloff is an award-winning landscape/wildlife photographer who has traveled on all seven continents to capture unique images in nature. His photographs have been published in several calendars and print magazines. He also has photographs in the Kent State University Libraries, Special Collections and Archives. He lives in Powell, Ohio, with his wife, Lucia; dogs, Poco, Tiki, and Gucci; and cat, Pelusa.

The next post will be dealing with How to take photographs and provide a safe environment for the birds.

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If you liked this post, please consider sharing it with your friends, on mailing lists you belong to, on Twitter, on Google+, on your Facebook wall, and on Facebook groups and on Pinterest.  Or you may blog about this blog.

Finally, subscribe to this blog, not to miss any future posts.

 

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Feeding the birds – winter.

Close encounters with birds.

If you really want to enjoy the birds close up there is nothing that beats feeding the birds. You get the birds so close you can study them with your bare eyes or take photos of them with you cell phone or a point and shoot camera.
Providing you have a place to put the feeder, here are some tips for the absolute beginner collected from my Facebook friends.

Type of feeders

It is important to keep the feeders clean. Make sure the seeds are kept dry and that there is good ventilation.

You can build your own feeders with some ingenuity or you can buy designed feeders.  Some of my Facebook friends recommend some specific products below.

Home made feeders made of milk packages and soda bottles.

A clever soda bottle feeder with wooden spoons. - https://spoonful.com/crafts/backyard-bird-feeder

A clever soda bottle feeder with wooden spoons. See Spoonful.com for instructions how to build it.

Here is a video how to make a feeder from a milk package.

Here are 7 DIY Recylced Bird Feeders if you need more inspiration.

Hopper Feeders
A hopper feeder is a platform upon which walls and a roof are built, forming a “hopper” that protects seed fairly well against the weather,
less well against squirrels. They are fairly easy to build yourself. There are also commercially available ones that are designed to keep squirrels off such as those recommended below.

Gry Lockert-Andersen and Charles Swift recommend the Droll Yankees Hopper Feeder above.

Heritage Farm Squirrel proof birde Feeder

Deborah Jean Cohen swears by Heritage Farms Absolute Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder (above). She has used it for years.

Squirrel Buster
Ingenious feeder Squirrel Buster to give the expensive seeds to the birds and not to the gluttonous squirrels.

David Graham’s neighbor and Janet Pawlusiak Pace recommend the Squirrel Buster. Janet says she has had hers for 6 years and it has performed very well.

Mesh Tube Feeder
These feeders are specifically good to keep the small Nyger seeds. There are plenty of models to choose from. This is just one Mesh Tube feeder I have found.

There are also mesh tubes for peanuts which will be very popular among woodpeckers. Here is a smart circular design for whole peanuts.

Suet Block Holder
Hanging the suet block you attract Woodpeckers and Nuthatches. Again there are many different models. This double suet block holder from the Stokes is Squirrel proof.

Tray feeder
Tray feeders are quite easy to put together by yourself.  These feeders provide fast available food for a number of species. It is a good idea to have a roof so the seeds don’t get wet. It is also possible to put suet on the tray feeder.  Depending on the design, the tray can either be placed on a pole or hanging from a tree.

Tray feeders tend to attract squirrels, so either you live with it or you prepare your feeder with a Squirrel Baffle.

It can also be an idea to put some food on the ground to attract such birds which keeps most of their time on the ground, such as doves, pheasants, quails, etc. If there is snow on the ground it is not a good idea to put bird food there, as it will be difficult for the birds to get to. Better to offer a ground feeder which could be a frisbee or a garbage can lid or you could buy a designed ground tray.

Birds seeds

When I was a kid we used to feed the birds bread, and yes the birds will eat that. But there is not much energy value in bread. Better to supply fat and protein rich seeds. Here are some seeds that are commercially available.

Sunflower seeds

Chickadees, Titmice, Nuthatches, Goldfinches, House Finches, Cardinals, Grosbeaks and Jays love sunflower seeds. The seeds come in two forms. Black oil sunflower seed is the most popular and have the high content of oil and a shell that is easy for the birds to open. The Striped form of Sunflower seeds have harder hulls.
Hulled Sunflower seeds are also available. Clean of the hulls it is less messy and easier for the birds to eat. The hulled seeds additionally attract Woodpeckers, Sparrows, Mockingbirds and Wrens.

Safflower
Safflower, are superficially similar to Sunflower seeds but white. Fewer birds eat them. The Starlings, Grackles and House Sparrows don’t like them. So if these birds are a problem in your area Safflower seeds could be away to avoid non-native birds.  The Safflower seeds are particularly popular among the Cardinals.

Thistle Seeds
Also known as Nyjer or Nyger. These are thin black seeds imported from Africa and Southeast Asia. They are especially popular by clinging finches such as the Goldfinch, Common Redpoll and Purple Finch, as well as many of the other seed-eaters mentioned above. These seeds are high in oil, making them great for winter bird feeding. But they are small and very light, so they are easily spilled or blown away. Mesh-style or sock feeders are best for this expensive seed. Clinging birds will have no trouble feeding from these unique feeders.

Millet
Are small grainy seeds popular among ground feeders such as Sparrows, Doves and Juncos.

Corn

Whole or cracked placed near the ground for Pigeons, Doves, Quails, Pheasants, Towhees, Blackbirds, Grackles and Jays.

Nuts.

Peanut – unsalted of course – both whole nuts as well as peeled nuts. Most birds that eat hulled sunflower seeds eat nuts.

Fruit

Baltimore Oriole are particularly interested in oranges. Photo: Deborah Jean Cohen

Fresh fruit such as apples and oranges, is popular among Robins, Bluebirds and Mockingbirds. Baltimore Orioles are particularly fond of oranges. They also like dried fruits.

Mealworms

Many birds that eat insects, including titmice, chickadees, and
bluebirds, are attracted by mealworms. In the winter it is a good idea to mix mealworms in the suet. Buy Mealworms in pet stores.

Suet

Made from beef fat is very popular among nuthatches and woodpeckers. You can get unprocessed suet from the grocery store. There are also many packaged suet mixes available in bird food outlets. These suet mixes contain many types of seeds and other food items.
Claire Baker suggests that one may collect grease while cooking  for home-made suet. Especially those “NuWave Convection ovens” with a grease collecting pan in the bottom.  Collecting the grease and mixing it with peanut butter, cornmeal, oats, birdseed, raisins, leftover nuts, or whatever makes a great suet.

Claire writes: Then I put them in the plastic dishes that my chihuahua’s dog food comes in (Cesar’s) and wrap in plastic. This makes a small thing of suet (you could use plastic cat food dishes, be sure and wash them first), then I freeze them. Perfect for summer too. It doesn’t have time to spoil. The Golden-fronted Woodpeckers love the cold suet! So do the Green Jays and Great Kiskadees. 
(Could you tell Claire lives in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas?)

In the next installment of Birding 101, my Facebook friend Deborah Jean Cohen  in Pennsylvania provides a recipe of  THE BEST SUET IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE.

This sounds so cool, we just have to make a special post about it!

Bird Bath

Both Deborah Jean Cohen and Julia Lucignani insist that one of the most important items is a heated bird bath in the winter. It gives the birds both drinking water and a chance to keep their feathers clean. Commercial ones available include a bird bath that can be mounted on a porch and another larger 20 inch bird bath with stand. Another option is to just get a ice eliminator which you plug in and  place in any bowl with water.

Identifying the birds.

In chapter 1 of Birding 101 there are a lot of tips for online resources how to identify birds. It is a good idea to try to get a photograph of the birds.  Read Stephen Ingraham’s article how to choose a point and shoot camera for birding. Many of these models will get you excellent shots of the birds that come to your garden.

Spending money!

As I researched for this post I was amazed to see the commitment people have to feed the birds and the seemingly huge amounts of money involved doing so. There are clearly hoards of people out there who are willing to spend on bird seeds and designed feeders.

Facebook friend Jenny Graevell says: We go through about 2500 lbs of bird food a year. No 1 suet (homemade with suet, peanuts, peanut butter, flour, mealworms,) No 2 Black-oil Sunflower seeds, No 3 Thistle, No 4 Millet seed mix. No 5 MAINTENANCE! Clean those bird feeders at least monthly. Jane illustrates this commitment very well.

Feeding birds move a lot of money.  Over 55 million Americans over the age of 16 feed wild birds and spend more than $3 billion a year on bird food, and $800 million a year on bird feeders, bird baths, bird houses and other bird feeding accessories

Now, think if some of these people could be tapped to also become members in bird conservation organizations such as the ABC. Or perhaps become members of local bird clubs or national organizations such as the ABA or National Audubon Society, which could do well with some more members to improve strained budgets.

Sources:

Below I have listed a number of sites I used to prepare this post.

Finally, big thanks to all who have commented on my Facebook. They include:  Martin Swanhall, Julia Lucignani, Deborah Jean Cohen, Andrew Haffenden, Janet Pawlusiak Pace, Jennie Duberstein, Claire Baker, Jenny Graevell, Gry Lockert-Andersen, David Graham, Charles Swift, Sherry Lidstone and Rob Alexander.

Additional tips.

What are your best tips for feeding birds in the winter in the US and Canada? Please use the comment section to let us know.

If you liked this post, please consider sharing it with your friends, on mailing lists you belong to, on Twitter, on Google+, on your Facebook wall, and on Facebook groups or you may blog about it. We need to get more people into caring about the birds. After all, with more people caring about birds and birdwatching becomes more significant, there will be more bird conservation. That can’t be bad.
Finally, subscribe to this blog, not to miss any future posts.

Disclaimer: All links to Amazon.com above are affiliate. That means if you click and buy, we earn a very small commission which helps to run this website, and help paying for the upcoming production of the eBook. You don’t pay any more, and we get a contribution. There will be no affiliate links in the ebook once it is ready. Thanks for your support.

Photos: White-breasted Nuthatch and Baltimore Oriole by Deborah Jean Cohen.

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Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com.

 

 

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Birding 101 Hangout Friday 3pm EST.

How will birdwatching be 10 years from now?

The first intro posts in this series produced a stir among some birders. How can an experienced birder say that you don’t need binoculars and a field guide to start birding?  Testimonials in the comment section of this blog have however proved this assertion is correct. Many new birders  actually did start with a camera and are lurking on the internet to try to ID the photographs taken before they bought their first binoculars or field guide.

This seems to the trend today. People get into birds via a point and shoot camera and get most information they need from the internet.

You are invited to a Google Hangout, which is like a webinar where we will discuss how birdwatching will be 10 years from now?

Birding 101 Google Hangout #1

Birding 101 contributors Gunnar Engblom  and +Robert Mortensen and a number of others to be confirmed will give their views. Join us for an interesting live chat.
The discussion will be aired live at 3PM EST on Gunnar’s Google+, Youtube channel and on both Gunnar’s personal blog as well right here.

You shall see an embedded video below. If you join at exactly 3 pm EST on Friday Jan 18 it will be LIVE.

UPDATE: This is the edited recorded session between Robert Mortensen and Gunnar Engblom. Unfortunately, Gunnar’s laptop overheated again and the session was broken pre-maturely.

The last question which Robert started answering. Should the membership organizations, such as the ABA actively try to recruit from the new huge group of people who got into birds via digital photography, or should they remain as an organization principally geared towards those who are interested in the fine (somewhat “intellectual”) art of bird identification?

Comments below, please!

Next Google Hangout will take place on Thursday at 8 pm Eastern time. Join us, then.

Top photo: Kids on Fence. Richard Crossley. Used with permission. www.Crossleybooks.com

 

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Birding on Web

Curiosity

The intro chapters stated that you don’t need binoculars and a field guide to start birding, just an internet connection and a point and shoot camera would suffice. Wrong!  All you need is curiosity.

You look at birds with your bare eyes at the feeders in your garden or in the park. It is hard to know what the birds are, but hey, today almost every person has a camera in the pocket. Maybe not a large and bulky camera, but almost everyone has a camera on their phones.  So you could carefully try to sneak up on the bird, which is not too difficult with these confiding birds, and take a picture.

Sure you recognise the Cardinal, even the drab lady Cardinal you recognise. And you recognise the Robin. But there are loads of other birds too. Is that a chickadee? How does a chickadee look like. Is that a wren? Maybe, but what kind of wren?

And what is that dull bird with some red on it? And what is that tan-colored bird with a white stripe on the wing? You feel stupid. You don’t know and you don’t know who to ask. Let’s check the internet.

This is what would go through your head if you were completely new to birds. You’d feel a bit intimidated to ask someone who would know better, but you can always google.

Perhaps you google “small red brown bird at feeder” on Google image search and some pictures do look like your bird. It could be a House Finch, but it was not as bright red as that. And the other one could be a Goldfinch.  You feel insecure and need to ask someone.  Since the feeder is just outside the kitchen window, you manage to get a shot of the bird with your cell phone. At this point it would be good to have a directory of birdwatching resources on the internet.  That  is what this chapter is about.

Web field guides to common birds.

Here are some cool websites you can use to identify the most common birds around you.

  • Wild Bird Center’s Top 50 Backyard birds.  This is an awesome resource. There is a version for the East and one for the West.  Both works like a book but you have to read in online. There are about for pictures for each species. And they are all supplied also with the sound so you can hear the song of each species.  Study these thoroughly and you will be able to identify most of the birds at your feeder without any trouble
  • Audubon online field guide. If you don’t have a field guide your self this comes in very handy. There is also a very advanced search function in which you can describe the bird, what it looked like, and in what habitat the bird was encountered, flight pattern and geographic location. Then the system spits out some suggestions for you. Sadly, the system seems to have a bug when I checked, but when it gets going it shall become a fantastic resource.
  • National Geographic Back Yard Bird Identifier.  This should help you get closer to the identity of an unknown bird. A simpler system than what Audubon is intending above, but this one works. And it is fun too.
  • What Bird also employs describing different features of the bird as well as location. Recommended.
  • Cornell Lab of Ornithology has an online field guide on their  All About Birds site. The are currently building a smarter ID tool called Merlin. You can help out by answering some general questions describing the bird.

Take a picture, honey!

Every so often you see a bird and you really, really, really would like to take a picture of it to find out afterwards what it was. Beware, this is the first sign that there is a birder inside of you who wants to come out.  You have been warned.

You want to take a picture to upload it on the internet to ask an expert what kind of a bird it is.  You don’t own a field guide (yet), and you can’t find it on the online resources listed above.  You feel dazzled  by all the bird diversity.

You took this shot with your phone and you got this speck of a bird. Can you even see it?

Please, don’t upload this. Do yourself and the people who will see your picture on the internet a favor. CROP!  Most non-birders never crop.  Birders always crop.

The absolutely easiest way to crop pictures is by downloading  Picasa 3 – a free software from Google. It even allows you to do some editing.  If you are looking for more serious editing capabilities check this link for the best free photo-editing software, which work like the famous Adobe Photoshop. Do note that some downloads come with notorious ads, or worse they may ask you to download a tool-bar. Decline all such offers.

Here is the pic after cropping.

Bird identification resources on the internet

In spite not being the best photo it is possible to identify it. For the sake of argument, let say you can’t find it in any of the resources listed above, or for whatever reason you need to get a fast answer.

For this blog post I did a test. I sent it to 3 online resources to get an answer. It took between 1-12 minutes to find out what this bird was. Impressive, huh? Remember it was only a speck taken with your phone.

  • Birdforum. The number 1 birding website of the world has a section which encourage you to send photos of birds for identification. It took one minute to get the correct answer.  Follow the thread here.  There is seldom an explanation why a bird species is such and such, but nonetheless a valuable resource  for any mystery bird you may have photographed.
  • American Birding Association Facebook group.  It took two minutes to get the right answer. With almost 4000 birders in this group there ought to be someone who knows what your North American Mystery bird is. Be sure you try to identify the bird yourself first with the online resources above, before you pin your picture to the group. The group welcomes both new and experienced birders, but it is not appropriate to use the group every time you have a bird you want identification help with.
  • Birding School North America Facebook group. This is a smaller Facebook group consisting of about 100 birders, which specifically aim to help beginners. It was created specifically for the Birding 101 project when this whole idea started to shape in late September 2011 in a blogpost called The Future of birding. It took 12 minutes to get the correct identification. Everyone in this group loves to identify your bird pictures. We don’t care if you haven’t checked the field guide. But we will make an effort of telling you what the main field marks are, so you have a learning experience.

Another highly recommended Facebook group is The Facebook Bird ID group of the world which has a larger scope (the world) but a bunch of birders ready to help with identification. You should try come up with a guess, using the tools you have at hand, and also supply location. You will get the hints of the best field marks to look for.

Additional online resources worth checking out.

As I researched for this post I came across a few resources which perhaps does not totally fit the purpose of the post, but still could be valuable to you.

Do you have other online tips for beginner birders? Please list in the comment section. In the next chapter of Birding 101, Stephen Ingraham from Zeiss will let us know how to choose a good point and shoot camera for birding. Now that you have been introduced and know where to post your pictures of birds you can’t identify, you may want to invest in a good point and shoot camera.

If you like this post, please consider sharing it with your friends, on mailing lists you belong to, on Twitter, on your Facebook wall, and on Facebook groups or you may blog about it. We need to get more people into caring about the birds. After all, with more people caring about birds, there will be more bird conservation, as the presence of the birds and bird lovers become more and more significant.
Finally, Subscribe to this blog, not to miss any future posts.

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Oh, and if you wondered what the mystery bird was? It was a Red-breasted Nuthatch, photographed by Brooke McDonald in Redding, California.

 Top photo;  Goldfinch and house finch by Sarowen on flickr. Non-commercial CC licence. Feeeder picture by Carl Bendorf. Red-breasted Nuthatch by Brooke McDonald. Used with permission.

 

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Birding 101 – starts now.

Jumping!

We are the end of the intros and the beginning of the start. I am about to present the plan of the e-book and the blog series that will build it.  In a way it feels like I imagine parachuting feels like. A great abyss below me and I still jump – hoping the parachute will open. To land this project in a timely manner I rely on the parachute. I will still need to direct the chute to get to the right landing place…and I will still have to land it myself.  Without it? Crash landing!

I have asked many of  my blogging and social media friends to help me out. To be my parachute. I haven’t given them much lee time, so I am still waiting for some replies. I will not compromise anyone by naming them here if they have not yet confirmed.  Check back again and again to see who have confirmed to be part of the project.

I am aware that this is a new approach to birding. It scares me. It probably scare others.  I met resistance from some birders on Facebook. I am not selling anything. I am giving away. Maybe that wasn’t clear?  Furthermore, it is not about me. It is a communal project with lots of other people making it possible.  It is principally about you, who just have become interested in birds.  It is about giving you a tool. A useful tool for you, but not only for you. This tool you can share without limits with everyone you know. Let it go viral.

Maybe I want too much and too fast for my own good.  I had hoped ABA could lead this project. But I understand it would have been difficult. One needs to convince the board and the members, that a Swedish guy who lives in Peru who says one does not need binoculars to start birding, wants the American Birding Association to lead in producing a free downloadable manual to birding in the digital age saying just that.  Yeah, right!

I shall try to land this thing myself with the help of the parachute. Some people I have written will perhaps not have the time to help out. Others are inhibited by the company or organization they work with. That is OK.  We fully support all the organizations mentioned in this project, and hopefully they will also do their share of cross promoting once the product is ready.

As far as I can see, the main thing is to get this done. The rest we shall deal with later. If the product is good and useful, there is nothing that can stop it. Remember it is free.

I am ready to jump. The parachute is this list of content for the forthcoming e-book, here presented as a blog. I hope I can find the people to build it. And if not, by the end of this week, each section which has NOT a name assigned to it, perhaps you, dear reader and supporter of this project, can suggest people willing to fill the still empty slots. Please give suggestions, of great people to work with, in the comment section below.

Blog lay-out – list of content.

The About section gives you a good background of the goals.  Contrary to most manuals about birdwatching, this series will start with online resources and how to pick a point and shoot camera for birding, to eventually make mention of more traditional ways into birding. Binoculars are not discussed until Chapter 10!

This may seem strange. Birders argue that it can’t be proper birding without binoculars and to get binoculars before anything else.  But think for a while more organically. Most people who care about birds are not “birders”. They feed birds. Or they take a snapshot with a point and shoot camera. Or they make casual observations.
It is far too early to say: Buy binoculars!  It builds up to that point eventually. We will take it slow. We want to reach the masses. We don’t want to scare anyone away.

This slow process and this project will gradually convert casual observers into the next level.  A fully fledged birdwatcher.

The schedule – 22 25 chapters

I shall not give exact dates, but considering that the series consists of 22 chapters it shall take about three months, with 2-3 chapters published each week, to finish the series.  If you have not done so already, I suggest you sign up of  for the email updates, so you don’t miss any of the chapters. There is some great stuff ahead. One important central piece to this project  is a content managing system, which shall collect a lot of North American birdwatching resources into one website.  This we shall have to build together as a community. Every reader of this blog, can become a provider of information to the content. More about this below.

Chapter 1.  Birding on the web.
Online resources. (Gunnar Engblom).
A tour to various online resources you can start using today to learn more about birds and to get help in identifying birds you have photographed.

Chapter 2.  Birding with Point and Shoot Cameras.
Steven Ingraham of Zeiss Optics gives you an introduction what to think of when choosing a  suitable megazoom P&S digital camera.

Chapter 3. Feeding the birds.  The best tricks how to feed the birds, when to start and when to end and what to give them. We will also link to some feeder web-cams on the internet that you can check out (give us your best feeder cam tips).  Eventually, you may want to join the feeder watch program of Cornell Lab of Ornithology. See below.  (Author to be confirmed)

Chapter 4: Feederwatch. Bird populations undergo changes. Modern threats such as climate change, pollution, urban development also influence the populations. It is important to watch these changes. One way to collect massive amount of data, for scientists to use in their analyses, is persuading the public to send their observations to Feederwatch.  (Author to be confirmed)

Chapter 5. Bird Gardening
It is not only about feeding the birds if you have a big back yard. You may also shape the environment to become more bird friendly.  Carole Sevilla Brown show her top easy tips without having to become a full-time gardener.

Chapter 6.  Local suppliers for bird feeding and bird gardening.
We shall list owners of  stores for supplies of bird food and bird-gardening such as owners of Wild Birds Unlimited and Wild Bird Centers stores who are also bloggers and active in social media.
If  bird-feeding and bird-gardening interest you, you will  learn a lot from these. If you own or run a store which sells supplies for bird-feeding and bird gardening, and you also blog or are active in social media let me know and I will include you in the list.

Additionally, this is where the content managing system will begin.  We shall build a store locator for US and Canada. All stores shall be found on a Google map within the system.

This will be labor intense. Maybe someone from Wild birds Unlimited and from Wild Bird Centers could send us an excel file of all their stores. Also other franchises that sell bird food (please suggest names of such franchises) could do the same.
Everyone, shall be able to help to enter their favorite suppliers in the content system.

Visitors to the site will be able to rate stores and leave comments. The owners of each store will be able to manage their information.  Gunnar Engblom is building the content managing system.

Chapter 7.  Blogging – showing your birds to the world
Although, Facebook is great for sharing photos once in a while. You may want to share more and report from your explorations. Some simply delivers a nature diary of their explorations, while others concentrate on providing useful content for others. Robert Mortensen, Gunnar Engblom share some of their secrets.
We also hope to hold a webinar about bird blogging. Would you be interested?

Chapter 8. Social Media for birders.
Gunnar Engblom list various platforms and give ideas how to connect with other birders locally and worldwide.

Chapter 9. Birding with DSLR
What is ideal for bird photographer? How serious do you want to get? How long lenses do you need? What do cropping-sensors and megapixel really mean? Tradeoffs? Budget? A professional bird photographer will go through these items. (Yet do be defined)

Chapter 10.  Choosing binoculars.
In spite of promoting bird photography as entrance point to birding, in the end you really do need a pair of bins. You see so much more details with binoculars and you will find it easier to take a record shot if you located the bird first in the binoculars. Most old-time birders, will tell you that while getting a picture is great, the best experience of behavior and grace about birds you experience live with binoculars.  If you have reached this stage you should really consider getting binoculars.

In this post an expert (to be defined) will guide us through what to think of when choosing binoculars.  And give a range of tips of binoculars for beginners and especially highlighting inexpensive binoculars and binoculars for kids. 

Nothing beats visiting a dealer before buying to test the optics, why below we list all the binoculars outlets in the US and Canada that we know of. Some are even have panorama windows so you can test them in conditions close to the field conditions.  Another good idea is to visit birding festivals and test binoculars there.

We shall start listing all birding optics outlets in the US and Canada in the content managing system. Again, please help us inserting the data and get in touch with the owners to manage their entries.  I shall announce the content managing system within the coming  2 weeks. Keep your eyes open for this.

Chapter 11. Choosing telescope for digiscoping.
While a telescope may feel like a huge investment for someone who got into birding via a point and shoot camera it brings some advantages.  Apart from being able to finally see some details on those pesky sandpipers on the mudflat, it also opens up fantastic opportunities for long-range photography exploring the technique called digiscoping. It is also a cheaper alternative than extremely long lenses for the DSLR.

We hope to get the leading experts from the field to give their tips here.  Stay tuned for announcement of who they are. 

Chapter 12.  Describing a bird – what to look for to identify a bird yourself.
One of the pitfalls that traditional birders often mention about photography verses birding, is that the photographer stops looking at the bird while shooting away. Some information may not make appear in the photo. What was the relative size? How did the bird appear? What was it doing? What did it sound like?  We hope a major field guide author will cover this topic for us.  Stay tuned! Kenn Kaufman has confirmed to write this section.

Chapter 13. Identifying birds – field guides, apps and additional online resources
Sooner or later you will want to learn to identify birds by the means of a field guide or a birding app for your tablet or smartphone. There are also online resources for identifying birds. Grant McCreary and Drew Weber will go through the books and apps and give a fast review of what is available.

Chapter 14. Birding by Ear.
How to learn bird calls. Resources on line for bird calls. An expert on birdcalls, namely Tony Gallucci will write this chapter.

Chapter 15. The economics of birds and birding.
Ted Lee Eubanks has a long history of building resources for birders and building communities which supply services. Ted will show us that birding is not only fun, but it makes for good sustainable business which protects habitat and the birds we love. More birders =>More business=>More conservation.

Chapter 16. The Benefits of birding. 
Dave Magpiong will show how birding can improve your life – health, cognition, social life, development of children, mental acuity for seniors etc.

Chater 17. Birder ethics for digi-birders

Birder have a long tradition of setting up ethics for how to behave as a birder approaching the birds. Drew Weber will summarize a set of good standards for people who photograph birds. These standards have been selected in a survey given to bird photographers.

Chapter 18.  Become a better birder. Join a club.
A prominent birder (to be announced) will make a case why join a bird club.

For the content managing system all birding clubs and Audubon chapters across the US and Canada will be listed.
In reality it will be something of an updated  combined listing of the following resources:

https://find.mapmuse.com/map/birding-clubs

https://www.aba.org/resources/birdclubs.html

https://www.thebinocularsite.com/consumer/birding/bird-clubs-in-north-america.html

This will be labor intense, but again possible cooperating. A current Excel file from Audubon with all the local chapters would be a great start. Who has the contact details to get this?

Once every birdclub is responsible for their own information in the content managing system, they shall also be able to upload all events including talks and field trips to the event calendar which is build into the content managing system.

Chapter 19. Birding Magazines.
We shall list the major birding, birdwatching and bird gardening magazines in North America – and give a short review for each. Please provide contact details to editors/owners of these in the comment section below. (Need someone to be responsible for this section. Suggestions? Volunteers?)

To be listed the magazine must promise to

  1. Mention Birding.com.co in their magazine and website with link.
  2. Put a link to download the ebook on their web-page when it is ready.

Chapter 20. Birding Festivals.
Which are the best birding festivals in North America?  Perhaps we make the users decide in a survey. Hope to get a birding festival organizer to lead this topic.

Again we shall use the content managing system to place the birding festivals on a google map, as well as show the dates for each in the event calendar.

Chapter 21. Listing and ebird.
Many birders keep lists. Now lists can be kept on line. Ebird from Cornell Lab of Ornithology is one of the most important where your records also contributes to research.  Chris Wood from E-bird will write this chapter. A few desktop software and apps for smartphones shall also be discussed here.

Chapter 22.  Bird Conservation
American Birding Conservancy protects birds in the North America and in Central and South America.  ABC president Mike Parr presents ABC.

Chapter 23. Bird Travel
It is becoming more and more popular to look for birds further and further away from home.  Bird Tour Operators – a selected list of bird tour operators.

To be listed the bird tour operator must promise to:

  1. Upload a link to The  blog – to start with,
  2. Upload a link to Download the e-book
  3. Mention the blog and the e-book in their newsletter to their clients.

We need a volunteer to lead this topic. Anyone who has traveled a lot can do this.

Chapter 24. Make someone near you a birder.  Pledge to Fledge.
A wonderful new global movement to get more people involved into birding. It is simple. Just take someone birding. Next event is April 26th-28th 2013. Richard Crossley has agreed to summarize what the movement is and how you can get involved.

Chapter 25. Share this. Spread this.
The more people who get into birding, the more resources there would be for birding itself, for bird conservation and any type of birding business. Do yourself a favor. Do the birds a favor. Share this and spread this as often as you can. Print it entirely! Give it away!

You are not allowed to sell it!

The end

So what do you think? Will this work? Looking forward to your feed back in the comment section.
In the end it depends on how many people share the message. Share this and earlier posts with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Make a blogpost about this project. Send some links to friends via email.

If you liked this post, you may want to subscribe to this blog.  The first post is due in a couple of days. And Stephen Ingraham has prepared a monster post for Chapter 2 about digital point and shoot cameras. You really don’t want to miss any posts.

Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com

PS: I added this author box below. Does this work?   Too big?  Too much advertising or relevant info?

Top photo: Before the jump by Gerard on Flickr. Creative Commons.

 

by    13

The rewards of birding

9000 birds on his list!Tom Gullick hits 9000 species with Wallece's Fruit-Dove

How do you measure your success as a birder?  How do you get recognition of other birders and non-birders? Is there some sort of measurement to quantify the experience?

The easiest way, is to keep track of how many birds you had seen. The number allows you to compare yourself with other birders. This is known as competitive birding.

Even if there is no competition and you only compete with yourself, the listing game is the most prominent way how birding is practiced today. The number, of course, reveals nothing of the birder’s actual skills in identifying birds.

Tom Gullick (above) recently hit a landmark of 9000 species seen when he saw Wallace’s Fruit-Dove (top photo). This is truly amazing! 9000 species of the around 10,000 species that exist in the world.

But such numbers do  not impress non-birders, nor do they attract more people to the hobby. What is the point with putting a mark in front of the name of the bird in the field guide or on a birdlist indicating that you have seen it? What is it good for? Why would anyone else care? Why would a non-birder even pretend to listen or pay attention when the birder brags about his new life-birds?

Having said this, there are of course birders, who are well recognized for their birding skills. They are bird guides and authors of bird books. But most people who throw themselves into the hobby need some sort of measurement – and that is when the listing game starts

The digi-birders

Maybe we need a new term. I have been bashed for labeling those who start taking photos of birds birders. Let’s introduce a new word. Digi-birders – who get hooked by taking digital photos of birds.
The new digi-birding boom has put things in a new perspective. Just as mentioned in an earlier post of with a kid getting into birding via a digital point and shoot camera, the same is true if we talk about recruiting new birders among adults.  Taking interesting photographs of birds becomes far more interesting than counting numbers of birds seen. Sharing the photos on the internet where everyone can see them even your non-birding friends. You gain recognition by sharing your bird photos. The more shares and likes you get for a photo on Facebook, the greater your satisfaction and the recognition of your peers.

Frankly, which of the two models do you think works better for recruiting your non-birding friends to take interest? Are you sure they want to hear about your last lifebird you added to your list? Or do you think they’d be more interested in seeing the great photo of a bird you took yesterday. They certainly would not share your Facebook update of a new birder milestone of species seen, but they may just share your great bird photo – of say a Wallece’s Fruit-Dove.

Internet and especially Facebook has made it easier for bird photos to gain recognition and it is this mechanism which will make interest in birds massive.

Digi-birders could adopt birding ethics.

Can you see how powerful this change is? Don’t you agree in this light there could be millions of new birders in the coming years – if including also bird photographers into the birder label? At least labeling the bird photographer as potential birder – or at least digi-birder.

What is important is that there will be a lot of people who will care about birds. That will be more people interested in conservation. It is up to us, the traditional birders to be there for the new digi-birders to teach them birding and identification skills and to introduce them to the ethics of birding. The impact on the birds and the environment by our presence needs to be looked after. Birders in general have good ethics and practice a code of conduct and can/should transmit this to other users of the natural areas.

Top photo: Wallece’s Fruit-Dove by Mehd Halaouate. Swedish readers will find Mehd’s wife’s blog about living in Indonesia interesting.

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This was the seventh pre intro-post in the birdwatching from the beginning series. There are one more intro chapter to go.  In the next post, I will make an outline of the coming posts. I hope to get a lot of guest bloggers to treat different topics. Please make sure you tell your friends of this series so they can be with us from the start.  You are allowed to share the posts via email, or on Facebook, Google plus and Twitter. Check the sharing options below.
If you liked this post, you may want to  subscribe to this blog.  The launch is on January 1, 2013.  A good way to start the new year.

Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com

by    2

Digital photography – nature watching revolution.

More and more people get interested in nature.

It is easy to see that it is digital photography which is the engine of the new trend. It is likely that people who get into birds via digital photography, also start getting into plants and bugs, because it is easy to take photos and no one need to spend money on film anymore.  The nature watchers of the future should  become much broader and more knowledgeable than traditional birders.  Similar photographic challenges with dragonflies or butterflies, are getting very popular. It is the digital photography which has made this possible.

It is also interesting to see that in countries which lack a traditional birdwatching  movement,  such as Brazil, Thailand, China, Costa Rica,  nature watching through digital photography has become massive in recent years. The national parks and nature reserves of these countries are full of local people with massive cameras and blinds – all intending to take superb pictures of birds.

How do we get new and young members to our bird club?

Meanwhile, in the traditional stronghold countries such as US, UK, Netherlands and Scandinavia, there are often complaints that there is little regeneration of young birders. In fact every so often one hears the birders saying that the hobby is dying, as membership figures of bird clubs dwindle and the average age among the members is way over 60.

But if the birdclubs instead concentrated on recruiting new birders with a focus on bird photography and sharing photos on social media there is enormous potential for growth.  As the potential is so large, it will also save the “old school” birding which considers good birding is about nurturing field identification skills.  There will always be people who shine if enough people get into the “game”, but if we – the birders – close the doors and continue to promote birding the old way, the risk is that we shall not be competitive enough in the digital age. The kids will continue to play video games and be stuck behind the computers and the TV sets instead of discovering nature.
Bird photography in contrast is cool!

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This was the sixth pre intro-post in the birdwatching from the beginning series. There are two more intro chapters to go.  Please make sure you tell your friends of this series so they can be with us from the start.  Share the posts via email, or on Facebook, Google plus and Twitter. Check the sharing options below.
If you liked this post, you may want to  subscribe to this blog.  Soon the real chapters will begin.

Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com

by    2

Why birds?

How to start birding – intro 5. Why birds?

While digital photography allows us to shoot all types of nature and it is in fact easier to shoot bugs and plants than birds, it is still birds which stand out as most popular among nature watching.  Perhaps because it is possible to put a name on practically every bird you would photograph.  The literature available for identification is complete for birds, while for plants or bugs either the share numbers of species are not manageable, the identification from photos not straight-forward or the literature incomplete or hard to get access to.  Birds come in manageable numbers and can quite safely be identified to species.

Field guides for the beginner birder. Photo: USFWS Mountain-Prairie

Perhaps is it also the fascination people have for birds. Birds occupy every niche on the planet, birds are beautiful, birds represent hope, and birds accompany and give flavor to the changes of the seasons.  Birds represent freedom and we envy their ability to fly. Birds come in fascinating shapes and forms: From Hummingbirds to Penguins.  From Albatrosses to Warblers. (…click for a  larger image…)

Annas Hummingbird (Danny Perez), Emperor Penguin (Anne Froehlich), Bullers Albatross (Duncan - Angry Sunbird), Masked Yellowthroat (Nathas)

Taking all this into account, is there any wonder that birding is the part of nature watching which is most attractive to new adepts.  It is also a hobby you can bring with you anywhere in the world. Wherever you are there are always birds to see.

Top Photo: House Sparrows and Black-headed Gull.  Paris. Bird Mind Control by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE -on Flickr.
Field guides for the beginner birders. Photo: USFWS Mountain-Prairie
Collage from  Flickr Creative Commons.  Annas Hummingbird (Danny Perez), Emperor Penguin (Anne Froehlich), Bullers Albatross (Duncan – Angry Sunbird), Masked Yellowthroat (Naathas)

This was the fifth pre intro-post in the birdwatching from the beginning series. If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to this blog, share the posts via email, or on Facebook, Google plus and Twitter, tell your friends and take your friends birding. Check the sharing options below.  Soon the real chapters in the blogseries will begin.

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Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com

by    2

Birding is easy. It is massive. Intro 4.

Birding is easy. It is massive.

The new type of birdwatching and naturewatching which concentrates on sharing photos on social media and learning as you go along, has the potential to become very popular and mainstream. In a way it already is. But there is little direction. It is also necessary for the existing (old school) community of birders to embrace the new trends and actively make birding inclusive.

Why? Because birdwatching needs to grow to counter act the increased threats on nature. Birding needs more ambassadors.  All human beings should care for birds, and we would have a better planet. More people would understand that it is necessary to save resources and to conserve nature. More people would understand the need to live in a more sustainable way. Birding is educational.

Online resource

The purpose with this blog series is to produce an online resource “how to become a birdwatcher in the digital age” in form of a free downloadable ebook. The ebook will reach a lot of people. If it is free and readily available there will be a lot of downloads. There ought to be a tremendous pool of people who would  download, if there are 47 million people in the US who care about birds enough to call themselves birdwatchers.
Yet, there are at best 40.000-50.000 serious birders if one add up all people who subscribe to email lists for birders.

We should really ask ourselves, what it is we are doing that keeps 99.9% of those interested in birds away from the birding network.
Should we try something new?  A free manual put together by a number of well-known birders, which focus on presenting all the birding resources one find on the internet and how one can get started by oneself and get some tutoring on the internet via for example Facebookgroups. A manual how to feed birds and make gardens that birds will love. A manual that helps you pick a better and not too expensive point and shoot camera. A manual to finding decent binoculars that suits you and your wallet. A manual that helps you find a bird club or a birding festival. Basically, a Birding 101 for the digital age.
That is something new, so let’s try that. I am not saying  it is the only way. Just one way of many. But it is new! And its free.

Share this

As a reader of this blog, you will have an important role. You are an ambassador for nature.  Subscribe to this blog, share the blog on list servers you participate in or share it on Facebook and Twitter, tell your friends and take your friends birding.

We are about to embark on a magical journey of naturewatching, and birds will be our main focus.

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Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com

 

by    15

How to start birding. Intro 3.

How to inspire a kid to get interested in birds and nature.

Say you have kids and you really would like them to become more interested in nature, but they are more into to TV and computer games.  You are tearing your hair with the potato couch kid. You read some manuals about birding, which all invariably recommend getting a pair of binoculars first of all.  You got $350 to spend. (You are a rich parent just for this argument).

Scenario 1. Binoculars.

You spend 350 dollars on a pair of binoculars and then drag the kid outdoors and show him some birds. Maybe he says “wow”… maybe he says “drag”….but when summer camp comes, he has invariably most likely already forgotten to pack his binoculars.

Scenario 2. Point and Shoot Camera

You picked up THIS EBOOK (forthcoming) and decided to spend 350 dollars instead on a point and shoot mega zoom camera. You drag the kid outdoors, let him take photos of plants and bugs using the macro, and dragonflies, butterflies and birds using the 35x optic zoom.  Then you post some of the photos on Facebook or he posts them on his blog. Maybe you will find a local Facebook groups for birds or dragonflies which can tell you what the species they are. You are met with respect, in spite of having no experience of either birds, nor dragonflies – and you don’t own a field guide (yet). The experts on the group tell you the field marks you should look for to clinch the ID.
The kid says wow! How can they know all this? Another question to the Facebook group and you are recommended some field guides applicable to your area.

Comes summer camp and the camera is the first thing to be packed. In fact he’d have it in his hand the entire trip, documenting every detail. Sure, he probably won’t be thinking of shooting birds at all….but because he can,  he clicks off some shots of a bird sitting on top of a tree, and when he zooms in, he can see it is a raptor. He shows his friends and they share it on his blog. Hey, it would be kind of cool to know what kind of raptor it is. Mom asks the Facebook group again. Red-tailed Hawk. Other kids, see his pics and also want a point and shoot camera. They also want to learn about the nature around them.

It is easier
It is cooler
A photo is tangible – and observation is not.
It possible to share it
It is viral.

But is it really birding?

I have gotten a lot of comments from birders, that this is not really birding. And maybe they are right. By sending off the picture to Facebook or an online forum and get the ID this way is a bit lazy.

Per definition by American Birding Association:  A birder is a person who is actively pursuing the hobby or sport of birding. Birding  is a sport and/or hobby in which individuals enjoy the challenge of bird study, listing, or other general activities involving bird life. Critics say that people  photographing birds are not really observing.

But taking photographs of birds is a general activity involving bird life, isn’t it? With the new digital photography technique  it is far easier to get interested in birds via photography than with binoculars as demonstrated above. This is where I am going with this series.  Eventually, the kid will also want a pair of binoculars. Why? Because he likes  birds. And he would like to watch them when the photography conditions are not the best. Birding grows on you.

Maybe the definition of a birder will be change soon: Someone who is actively pursuing the hobby or sport of observing or photographing birds. The old school birders will protest. So be it!  Digital bird photography at all levels is here to stay. Some people will never become experts. But that is OK.

Jeff Gordon, president of the American Birding Association, said on my Facebook wall:

“Birders have often as a group been insular, though to be fair, they’ve often been marginalized. But part of my whole thesis about how I approach my job at the ABA is that we have to let go of the past, suck it up, and let our lights shine. Become less focused on ourselves and our own successes and failures and more concerned about building a bigger, more fun tent.”

Should pursuing birds by photography be included in the word birding? Comments below please. And don’t forget to subscribe to email updates so you don’t miss any posts. Have a wonderful week full of birds.

Top Photo:  Canon SX40 HS (affiliate link): a highly recommended Point and Shoot Camera for $350 dollars. See Stephen Ingraham’s review. Stephen will be blogging about birding with Point and Shoot Cameras later in this series.

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Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com.