Backyard Birding and the Basics: Gateway to Avian Species

Winged Wonders

Birds – they’re all around us, yet how much do we know about them? For the longest time, I never knew how to differentiate species of birds. Even after I got into photography and took photos of them, I didn’t really think much about identifying them. I used to refer to birds by their colors and after taking a shot I’d think something along the lines of “that’s a pretty cute little red bird,” but not much else.

Let me ask you this – have you ever read the book To Kill a Mockingbird? When I read that book in high school, for some reason, I envisioned Mockingbirds as having a vibrant blue color. I knew from Atticus Finch’s remark that “mockingbirds don’t do one thing, but make music for us to enjoy,” but I didn’t realize until much later that my imagined Mockingbird was nowhere near the reality.

Northern Mockingbirds are actually a brown-grey color with fairly long tails and striking yellow eyes. Another thing I didn’t realize was that Mockingbirds lived around me. They even visited my backyard.

I would hear them on occasion… mimicking noises in the environment, as their name would imply. I can even hear them in the distance making calls that resemble car alarms, a far-cry from the music Atticus Finch referred to, but still an enjoyable tune nevertheless.

I didn’t get into birding necessarily until after I started studying Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Everyone has a different reason for birding, but for me and many others, it is an excellent opportunity to slow down, relax, and appreciate what is around. It is also an opportunity to observe patterns and behaviors that I would have missed otherwise.

Don’t feel that you need to go to a park, garden, or hiking trail to see birds. Often times, you can see them from your living spaces. If you are able to hear birds from your home, surely they are around enough for you to see them.

Birding: The Basics

The following are going to be a series of recommendations to get started with birding. By no means do you need to purchase all or any of the materials displayed in this section. There are many free resources that I will talk about later on that I highly recommend and use very often.

Foundational Literature

I didn’t necessarily know where to begin when I started birding. If I started with any of the three books in the image above, I surely would have had a more straightforward experience. It is one thing to look at birds come and go, but there are many things to consider.

Introductory Birding Books

An introductory birding book such as Sibley’s Birding Basics would have been a gamechanger. These books essentially give you a more in-depth break-down of what I am going over. They will tell you what to look for when you see birds; behavior patterns, flight patterns, notable markings and characteristics.

These books offer plenty of advice and insight. I cannot recommend them enough. They may not necessarily give you information on identifying specific bird species, but what they will do is give you advice on what to look for to identify specific bird species, when paired with another type of reference such as a field guide.

Birder’s Life-Lists & Journals

This is a book that I wish I had much earlier in my birding journey. Books such as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birder’s Life List & Journal greatly augment the birding experience.

These books provide extensive lists of birds found in particular regions. They allow you to treat birding as an organized scavenger hunt. Whenever you see a species of bird for the first time, you can mark down the date, location, and any notable characteristics. You may also draw a sketch of your observation.

These books are useful as an opportunity to reflect on your own experiences and have your own personal database to reflect on the birds you’ve seen since the beginning of your birding adventure.

Local Bird Guides

It is essential that you use a guide relevant to your location. I live in the Inland Empire region of California so Backyard Birds of the Inland Empire is a great field guide to have. This book was gifted to me after completing the UC California Naturalist program (which I recommend participating in as well).

It lists over 50 bird species found in the local area, arranging the birds by notable colors of their plumage, making it easy to identify species. The guide also gives a brief description of what time of year they visit the area and how they behave, vocalize, and nest. It also provides a description of why they may be drawn to your yard! A book like this is an excellent backyard birding companion.

Field Guides

It is essential to have some type of field guide when birding. A birder without a field guide is like a traveler without a map. You can still get the job done, but it would be much less organized and easy to get lost.

Traditional Field Guides

Traditional field guides are aimed to be portable pieces of literature that can be taken into the field to aid in identifying species. They are often sorted by region, so it is important that you use one relevant to your region. Because I live in California, I purchased and use Sibley Birds West. Traditional field guides provide an immense amount of information that is useful in identifying bird species.

These field guides provide clear illustrations or images that display a bird’s appearance. They also address behaviors, vocalizations, as well as other notable characteristics to help differentiate subtly different species from each other and the sexes and ages of the bird in question.

Field Guides Pamphlets

The types of field guides I used when I started birding were pamphlet field guides. Pamphlet field guides are condensed versions of traditional field guides. They are often illustration based and have limited or no descriptions aside from the name of the bird in question. Pamphlet field guides to have their place in birding though in my opinion.

If you don’t plan on referring to a fairly bulky traditional field guide and flipping through pages to identify a bird (especially when you have limited knowledge of birds to begin with), pamphlet field guides are a nice alternative.

You can literally throw a few of these in your pocket, unfold one, and quickly look through the images to see what bird is visually closest to the one you are observing. You can then mark down the bird most similar to what you observed and look it up online once you get back home!

Waterford Press creates many pamphlet fields guides specific to the different states and regions. I like to use the California Nature Set by James Kavanagh.

Optics

Birds are often difficult to see and move rapidly. It is almost essential that you use some type of optic to help you get a good view at the bird you are looking at in order to identify it correctly.

Binoculars

Binoculars are almost a staple for every birder. It wasn’t until recently that I purchased binoculars. They are a phenomenal addition to my birding kit. I find that I transition between using binoculars if I want to take time to enjoy the moment and my camera if I want to capture the moment.

Most birders would recommend using either 8×42 or 10×42 binoculars. 8×42 binoculars are less magnified than 10×42 binoculars. Because of this, 8×42 binoculars provide a wider field of view and a more stable image. The upside to using 10×42 binoculars is the magnified image allows you to get a more close up view of the bird.

I decided to go with the Nikon Monarch M7 10×42 Binoculars. They provide me with a clear, almost 3D image, when observing birds. They are fairly compact and convenient to carry, but the downside is they are fairly expensive at about $450 USD. If you don’t want to spend that much, there are cheaper alternatives that surely give good performance also. The Vortex Optics Triumph HD 10×42 Binoculars are reputable and a much more reasonably priced option than the Nikon binoculars.

When using binoculars, you will want to adjust the focus rings on one of the eye pieces and at the center of the binoculars. This is necessary because often times, both of our eyes don’t focus evenly. After the necessary adjustments are made, all you need to do is look at a bird, and while having your eyes pointing directly at them, bring your binoculars directly to your eyes. The bird should be right in the field of view!

Compact Monoculars

Compact monoculars can be very convenient to have. They are by far, the most portable option of the bunch that I will be going over. They are also more affordable than binoculars, much of the time.

The downsides of compact monoculars are that they have a smaller field of view, have less image stability, and just overall don’t offer the same ergonomics and comfortable viewing experience that binoculars offer.

For a little while, I was using the Canon Zoom Monocular. This optic could literally fit in my pocket. It also provided me with the ability to take images and record video of birds in the distance. The downside to the Canon Zoom monocular is that it runs on a digital image system. This is great, as it allows you to toggle between different zoom settings, but not good in low-light conditions.

Cameras

When I first started birding, I only used cameras paired with telephoto lenses. I love using my camera for birding. Using a camera allows you to not just view birds, but also capture them in wonderful images that you can refer back to later. Although cameras are wonderful to have in your birding kit, they aren’t always the most convenient.

Cameras can be expensive and heavy. The current camera I use is a Canon 90D paired with either a Tamron 150-600mm lens if I want to focus solely on birding, or a Tamron 18-400mm lens if I want to focus on hiking and portability with the capability of birding.

The Canon 90D is a fairly expensive DSLR to use, but there are cheaper DSLR alternatives that surely can capture nice images of birds. Unfortunately, the lenses that would be most useful for birding are expensive and out of range for the casual birder. Super-telephoto lenses such as the Tamron 150-600mm are heavy and cumbersome. Often times, I leave it at home unless it is a short walk.

The first camera I used for capturing zoomed images of birds is called the Canon Powershot SX50 HS. This was nearly 10 years ago, so it isn’t the best current option. This camera was relatively portable and allowed me to have a great capability to zoom and see objects in the distance. Like the Canon Zoom monocular, it runs on a digital image system, so it performs poorly in low-light.

If you are willing to spend a good amount of money and want to preserve images of your observations, feel free to go with a camera! Otherwise, binoculars would probably be the best option.

Modern Useful Resources

There are many free resources that greatly augment the experience for the modern birder. I will be going 5 of the most useful phone apps that you can download right now if you want to get involved in birding!

Phone Apps

Merlin

Merlin is an excellent app that uses your phone’s audio recording capabilities along with AI in order to identify birds based on their vocalizations! I love to use this app when I can hear a bird, but can’t see it.

Seek

Seek is useful app for identifying any species of plant or animal. All you have to do is take a picture of the bird you want to identify, and the AI will give you its best shot at identifying the species you are looking at!

eBird

eBird is an app that allows you to record birding observation into a database developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. This database contributes to scientific research associated with bird populations!

iNaturalist

iNaturalist is another app that allows you to record your observations into a research database. This app is not only for birds though, it also allows you to identify any species of organism. The Seek app was actually developed by iNaturalist. If you want to go a step further than Seek, iNaturalist is a wonderful app to use!

Audubon

The Audubon bird guide app provides a valuable resource for bird identification. It essentially acts as a phone field guide for birding. It also allows you to see nearby hotspots for bird watching and add your own observations. My favorite feature of this app is the ability to hear the songs and calls of the bird you are looking up. This is much more useful than trying to determine a sound by the written description of traditional field guides.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed learning about some of the fundamentals of backyard birding and birding in general! As I stated before, it isn’t necessary for you to get too technical or stressed about birding the “right” way. Everyone has their own way of going about it and the most important thing is that you have fun doing so!

At the very least, I suggest that you download the Merlin and iNaturalist apps. I’ve used those the most. Merlin is useful for identifying species by vocalizations and iNaturalist is useful for identifying species by appearance. The best thing about them is that they are free to use!

If you would like to learn more about the features the apps listed above provide, check out 5 Useful Apps to Help You Become a Naturalist.

If you have any questions about anything mentioned above, feel free to let me know in the comments section. Take care and happy birding!