What is Bird watching,birding

Birding, also known as bird watching, activity of observing birds and identifying birds in their natural environment for personal enjoyment or for educational purposes. Birders learn to recognize the distinctive feathers, colors, and structure of various bird species, as well as their calls, characteristic behaviors, and habitats. In the United States some 47 million people participate in birding, making it one of the most popular of all outdoor recreational activities.
Birding provides a wonderful opportunity for young people to learn about their natural environment through an understanding of birds and bird behavior. Birding does not require travel to distant lands since birds can be found in backyards, nearby parks, or anywhere that has water, food, and trees. Birding is an inexpensive hobby—a pair of binoculars and a birding guide will afford hours of pleasure.
Birders often keep detailed lists of the bird species they have observed, the date the species was viewed, and the species’ location, starting with those found in their own yards and neighborhoods. As their interest grows and their identification skills develop, many birders take pride in the growing list of species that they have viewed in locations further afield, such as other states or provinces, other countries, or even other continents. Many birders challenge themselves and one another to set records for the most species viewed in a 24-hour period, in an entire year, or over a lifetime.
Collecting personal lists of identified birds can be more than just a pleasurable activity. In many cases these records also serve a scientific purpose. Skilled birders from around the world who participate as volunteers in research projects gather information on the health of bird populations. These studies often provide the best available data—sometimes the only data—about bird life in specific areas and during specific seasons. In this way data gathered by birders may play an important role in determining land use and wildlife-management policies aimed at preserving birds and their habitats.
White eye bird

Where to view birds

Birds are found throughout the world. They have adapted to an amazing variety of habitats. More than 800 species of birds live in North America north of Mexico. In the United States, areas with varied topography, such as the states of Texas and California, provide a number of different ecosystems that can support almost 600 species. Even the most heavily populated urban areas offer a fascinating array of bird life across the seasons. For example, more than 100 bird species regularly nest within New York City, and more than 350 species have been identified, at one time or another, in New York City’s Central Park. Birds also flourish in some of the most remote and seemingly inhospitable regions of the world. Over 230 bird species occur in icy Greenland, and 272 species have been documented in Canada's Yukon Territory, where temperatures can plunge to –46°C (-50°F) during the winter.
Intentionally and unintentionally, humans have shaped living environments in ways that are well suited to the needs of many bird species. Starlings, house sparrows, swallows, and rock doves nest on buildings in cities, towns, and farms. The chimney swift has abandoned hollow trees for chimneys as a nest site in urban areas. Mallards and Canada geese—once exclusively wild, migratory species—now live year-round in the open spaces found in city parks and golf courses. Nearly all purple martins, a songbird species that once used the abandoned nests of woodpeckers or the natural cavities of cliffs or dead trees, now live primarily in structures specifically constructed for them by humans. The peregrine falcon nests on tall buildings in many cities.

Backyard birding--attracting birds

Some birders travel around the world to view a rare bird, but most birders are content to view the varied species seen in their own backyard and nearby neighborhoods. To attract birds to a backyard, birders provide some or all of a bird’s three basic needs—water, shelter, and food. Birders often study the feeding and nesting behavior of the birds they wish to attract. They then design their backyard so that it will be attractive from a bird’s point of view. Landscaping yards with familiar native plants provides protective cover for birds, along with edible fruits, nectar-bearing flowers, nesting sites and materials, and places to forage for insects. The sounds of trickling or dripping water from birdbaths and small, sheltered pools attract birds. These water sources offer a window into bird behavior as birds flock to them to drink and bathe.
Wood ducks, woodpeckers, tree swallows, and wrens are among the many species that use birdhouses, also known as nest boxes. These humanmade wooden structures provide a safe nesting environment, particularly in urban areas, where natural nesting sites may be limited. Ideally nest boxes should provide adequate ventilation, so that heat can escape, and proper drainage, so that the nest remains dry. A nest box with a removable panel permits easy cleaning at the end of the season so that rodents and other pests will not move into the nest. The size of the entrance hole of a nest box will also determine the type of bird that uses it. For example, house wrens require an entrance hole that is 3 cm (1.25 in) in diameter while a northern flicker requires a 6.3 cm (2.5 in) hole.
Birders use different bird feeders depending on the type of birds that they wish to attract. Bird-feeding systems include simple platforms on a post, hanging tubes that dispense seeds, and suet and sugar-water feeders. A platform feeder with millet seeds attracts doves and sparrows, while a tube feeder filled with black oil sunflower seeds attracts goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice. Birds such as woodpeckers and bushtits that eat insects and other invertebrates are drawn to suet feeders. Hummingbirds flock to sugar-water feeders, but many birders find it more satisfying to lure them to their backyards with colorful flowering plants, such as trumpet vine and honeysuckle. Backyard birders help birds by cleaning feeders and nest boxes regularly to prevent pest infestation and exposure to parasites and infectious agents such as Salmonella bacteria, which may live in discarded food.
Domestic cats are perhaps the greatest menace for birds. The American Bird Conservancy, based in Washington, D.C., estimates that cats kill hundreds of millions of birds each year. Cat owners can make their backyards a safe haven for birds by keeping cats indoors or in an enclosed area. Food sources, such as garbage or outside pet food dishes, should be removed so as not to attract neighborhood cats or stray cats. Locate feeders, birdbaths, and nest boxes away from brushy vegetation or other structures that cats can use to conceal themselves and ambush unwary birds.

Identifying birds

Purple sunbird

Appearance

Bird identification often begins with what birders call jizz (the general impression of size and shape that a bird conveys at first sight). Jizz is not a definitive identification technique, however, and must be confirmed by close and careful examination of the bird’s size, structure, color, and patterning. One way for beginners to gauge the size of a bird is to compare it to a nearby object of known size. Judging size can sometimes be tricky, however, especially when the bird is at a distance and there are no other objects nearby for comparison.
The structure of a bird’s body, wings, tail, bill, or feet can help distinguish a bird. For instance, body and bill shapes can distinguish a gull from a plover on the same stretch of ocean beach. Raptors such as ospreys, bald eagles, and broad-winged hawks can be identified from their distinctive silhouettes in flight. Ospreys have long wings with an angled leading edge. The large head of the bald eagle projects well forward of the straight leading edge of its wings, and the ends of the wings have a squared-off appearance. The broad-winged hawk has a small head and short tail and its broad, pointed wings have a smooth outline.
The shape of a bird’s bill has evolved as a consequence of the type of food the bird eats, and this characteristic is a powerful aid to identification. Hawks, owls, and eagles have strong, hooked bills for tearing the flesh of small animals. The straight, thick bills of herons, egrets, and kingfishers enable them to seize or spear frogs, fish, and crayfish, which they then swallow whole. Many ducks have broad bills that act as shovels to dredge up and strain out roots, seeds, and small water life. The hummingbird uses its long bill to collect nectar located deep within flowers. The short, stout cone-shaped bills of cardinals and sparrows are adapted for gathering and cracking seeds.
The colors of a bird’s bill, legs, and feet are often different from species to species, providing good field marks. In certain species the eyes and areas of bare skin around the face and throat may be distinctively colored. However, coloration of these parts can also vary within a single species as a result of different geographic populations, breeding conditions, diet, and other factors.
Feather patterns are also unique for most species. The upper parts and underparts of wings may show combinations of colors, sometimes in a characteristic pattern. A folded wing often shows one or two bars of a different coloration. The head may be distinctively patterned with crown stripes, eyebrows, eye rings, eye lines, cheek patches, and moustache-like marks. Many species exhibit pronounced differences of plumage between sexes, ages, and molt phases. Others show a great range of geographic variation, and some (such as the red-tailed hawk) may have strikingly different color differences among individuals in the same locality. Birders learn the distinctive coloration and patterns of all these plumages as if they were separate species. Plumage fading or wear, as well as fog, rain, and certain lighting conditions at dusk or dawn, can sometimes distort the external appearance of birds, leading to erroneous bird identification.

Paradise flycatcher(male)
Vocalizations

Bird vocalizations provide strong clues to a bird’s identity, although identifying distinctive songs and calls in the wild requires patience, experience, an excellent memory, and a finely tuned ear. Many birds rarely leave the cover of dense vegetation, and experienced birders can identify many of these birds by their vocalizations alone. Certain other species, although easy to see, may be visually indistinguishable in the field. For these birds, their song or call are the most reliable means of identification.
Commercial recordings of bird songs can help birders become familiar with certain vocalizations, but they do not take the place of long and diligent field experience. Attempts at mimicking the sounds that birds make can be a useful aid to memory. The most successful are those that capture a distinctive rhythm and cadence, for example the “witch-i-ty witch-i–ty witch-i-ty” of the common yellowthroat. Ultimately, however, it is the quality of a song (for example, whether it is fluted, reedy, whistled, or buzzy) that makes it unique. These qualities are the most difficult aspect to describe in words.

Behavior

Characteristic behaviors can be an important part of bird identification. Birds have different ways of nesting, courting, foraging for food, swimming, walking, and flying. For example, some birds search for insects or berries exclusively on the ground. Others search for food in low vegetation or in the highest tree canopies. Many birds feed underwater using distinctive diving patterns. Some birds jump-dive into the water from a floating position. Others put their head and neck under water and look around before propelling themselves deeper into the water with their wings and feet in pursuit of fish.
Locomotion patterns can also distinguish bird species. Some birds walk along the ground, others hop. Other birds bob their hind ends or pump their tails ceaselessly. During flight, herons and egrets fly with bowed wings, measured beats, and necks usually tucked back. Cranes, in comparison, fly with necks extended using a faster wing beat on the upstroke

Habitat

Birds tend to live in a particular habitat, from grasslands or evergreen forests to shrubby thickets or marshes. Learning these habitat associations helps birders distinguish between similar-looking birds that prefer different habitats. Habitat is a good indicator, but it is not an infallible identification characteristic. Birds do show up in odd places.

Finding birds--Migratory birds

Although it is possible to see and enjoy many species of birds in the backyard or in neighboring landscapes, many birds have not adapted well to urban conditions and prefer more natural habitats. Birding excursions to rural areas, forests, and shorelines open up many new bird-viewing possibilities. Some of the common, widespread species that birders look for in farmlands, grasslands, and other open country include vultures, kites, northern harriers, ring-necked pheasants, burrowing owls, bobolinks, meadowlarks, and goldfinches. Forests are home to broad-winged hawks, ruffed grouse, winter wrens, many finches, and most species of owls, woodpeckers, flycatchers, thrushes, warblers, and tanagers. Many birds prefer ponds, stream banks, marshes, and wet meadows, among them grebes, herons and egrets, ducks, sedge and marsh wrens, common yellowthroats, several kinds of sparrows, and red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds. Coastlines, large rivers, bays, and lakes are home to water birds such as loons, pelicans, cormorants, geese, ducks, gulls, terns, auks, and puffins. Birders visit all of these habitats in all seasons to view these birds in the wild and build their bird lists.
As winter approaches, some birds prepare for migration to warmer areas where food is more plentiful. Knowledgeable birders learn the migration routes for the birds they wish to view, and they seek out favored places where birds congregate along that route. These sites may include areas where birds gather in preparation for a long flight, known as staging areas. Other sites are known as resting or refueling stops, landing sites after long voyages over water, and winter-feeding grounds. Bays, estuaries, and wetlands may hold tens of thousands of migrating or wintering waterfowl. Arctic-nesting shorebirds move north across North America in April and May, then south again after breeding, from July to September. At such times they may gather in small flocks at ponds, mud flats, shorelines, and wet fields, and sometimes in huge numbers at rich feeding areas along the coasts.
Bird Sanctuary on Little Tobago
Many unique bird species are found on the islands of the West Indies. The entire island of Little Tobago, off Tobago’s northeastern coast in the Caribbean Sea, is a bird sanctuary.

Many migratory birds follow well-established routes, reappearing year after year at the same localities. Thousands of sandhill cranes regularly visit Nebraska’s Platte River Valley in March and early April. Raptors in fall migration sail past Hawk Mountain in eastern Pennsylvania or Hawk Ridge in northeastern Minnesota. The Delta Marsh Bird Observatory, located at the south end of Lake Manitoba near Ottawa, Canada, is a primary fall stopover site for migrating songbirds, including yellow warblers, song sparrows, and American redstarts. Many migrant birds collect at promontories and coastal islands in the spring and fall, including such well-known birding hotspots as High Island, Texas; the Dry Tortugas, Florida; Cape May, New Jersey; Point Reyes, California; and Point Pelee in Ontario, Canada.
Birders often travel to find birds that live only in certain regions, especially birds whose ranges barely reach the borders of the United States and Canada. Popular sites include southeast Arizona and the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where birders can view bird species native to Mexico; south Florida, which hosts birds from the West Indies; and western Alaska and the Atlantic coast provinces of Canada, where birders can view birds of Eurasian and Arctic distribution.
Certain bird species with very small populations can be found only in restricted areas. Whooping cranes, for example, are best viewed only in their wintering grounds at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas coast, while Kirtland’s warblers are rarely seen except in northern Michigan where they breed in jack-pine stands. Many birders join special tours just to view these two species. Likewise, birders go on organized boat trips to see ocean-going bird species, such as albatrosses, shearwaters, and skuas, which cruise the open seas for most of the year.