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I have a really great spotting scope, an angled Swarovski 80mm HD scope with a 20 – 60 zoom eyepiece (and sometimes I alternate a 25 – 50 zoom eyepiece).  I love using it and I especially enjoy sharing it with other birders when I can show them a new life bird or get a [...]

Britain might have had new species to add to it’s list, then again maybe it didn’t.  Not only seen by hundreds of observers, many of whom are highly experienced and knowledgeable birders, including some of the creme de la creme of British birding, but trapped, biometrics extracted, photographs and video taken, yet the identification of [...]

Snowy Owls are iconic birds. You rarely find a person – birder or non – who doesn’t want to take a good long look at a bright white owl. And, of course, you rarely meet a photographer who doesn’t want to take a good close picture of a bright white owl. On Saturday, as has [...]

One of the things that has vexed me about my fellow bird watchers is the inability to read signs. Well, that’s not fair. It’s the acute ability by many bird watchers to ignore signs. I’ve heard several excuses from, “It’s a great way for the land owner to get to know me,” to “no one [...]

 Here we have a forlorn group of birders that clearly do not trust each other. Good December to you birders. I hope you are all busy doing some post-Christmas/Chanukkah/Festivus birding, and heeding my advice about not going on pelagic trips. This month I would like to share some alarming news with you…although I hate to [...]

Christmas is coming and retailers are preparing for the frantic last-minute shoppers, desperate to find something, at this point anything, to show how much they cherish and appreciate their loved ones. This year however there is a sure-fire winner, guaranteed to put a quizzical look on the face of any child. It is the must-have [...]

I travel for birding. A lot.  I’m about to head out to the Hula Valley Bird Festival and as I’m packing, I thought I would share with you some essentials I think any birder should plan to have in their suitcase–no matter where they are visiting.  I’ve never regretted any of these items being in [...]

“Seen anything good?” -Our Ritual Greeting It was after about fifteen minutes on the dike at Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area with a pleasant couple from Maryland that I realized that we had managed to have quite a conversation that touched on a variety of topics but managed to not introduce ourselves.  We had discussed [...]

“This focus on diversity is good. It is the future of conservation. It is good.” -Dave Magpiong “There was so much incentive for me to stop birdwatching.” -John C. Robinson I spent all day Saturday at the Focus on Diversity: Changing the Face of American Birding conference organized ably by the irrepressible Dave Magpiong and a host [...]

There are two thoroughly enjoyable events for bird watchers coming up in the next couple of months. You’ve probably heard of both of these, but I believe that they are fun and worth doing for all the right reasons. One of them requires a bit of travel. The other, you can do from the comfort [...]

Quiz 3. Good day to you, my fine fellow birders. How is your August progressing? As you read this, I am riding my trusty Grizzly Bear through the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park, helping my colleague Seagull Steve find some new birds. Birding by bear is by far the best way to view the park, [...]

Dave Magpiong is a birder, father, Special Education teacher, and founder of the Fledging Birders Institute, “a non-profit environmental education organization with the dual mission of enhancing the healthy development of our youth with the profound benefits of birdwatching AND promoting public awareness of avian diversity and factors which threaten it thereby fostering a societal bird conservation ethic.”  He [...]

I think I missed my slot; did I miss my slot? Was anyone worried, anyone think maybe I’d been caught up in that little bit of bother? Le me reassure you I can handle myself in a riot. I’m three weeks into the summer holidays with three children. That’s three weeks of chaos and anarchy [...]

I’ve been to a lot of birding festivals—sometimes as a speaker, sometimes as a trip leader, and sometimes just because I love going to birding festivals. Last weekend I was in North Dakota attending The Potholes & Prairie Birding Festival in Carrington, ND. If you’ve never been to the potholes region of the Great Plains, [...]

It has been said many times that birders are always birding.  Once you are turned on to birds it is virtually impossible to be turned off of birds and if you are truly a birder your location and current (alleged) activity matter not a whit – you are birding.  And once you really get into [...]

My friend Kerry is a budding birder.  We have had some low intensity birding outings, she owns binoculars and a field guide, and she sees and tries to identify birds that she sees in her everyday life.  When she recently asked me if I would be up for a birding outing together so that she [...]

The best way to learn about birds is to go birding.  The second best way to learn about birds is, well, it’s a toss-up between talking with other birders about birds or reading about birds.  Then again, a well-written book or article is kind of like a one-sided conversation, and a blog, when it is [...]

Though Mike has already put up a post about our Montezuma Muckrace experience so much happened during the loooong day of birding that there is plenty more to post.  It was a great day and Will, Jory and Mike were tenacious teammates: it’s unusual for four people, much less birders, to be in a somewhat [...]

Upon arriving home this evening, despondent about having left my camera behind when watching birds and it not being there when I returned, I posted to a birding listserv about the loss. Within an hour an email that the camera was picked up by a birder and I’m getting it back. Enormous sigh of relief… [...]