Birds and Cameras

Awhile back I wrote about Birds and forest management. Well, today we’re going to go a little more in-depth.

So…I don’t know if you’re coming at this as seasoned birders or if you’re just getting started but as an amateur but avid birder myself these are my best tips for how to start engaging with the most ever present wildlife around.

• Learn to feed birds in the winter FIRST
• Learn to ID birds SECOND
• Learn to hear birds THIRD
• Learn to capture (photograph) birds LAST

Tuppence a Bag

Look, fish gotta swim. Birds gotta eat.

And in the winter, they frequently need a little help with that. Get a feeder. It’s relatively inexpensive. You can do it in a city pretty easily, but if you’re hanging it from a roof, get comfortable with squirrels raiding it. If you have a standalone feeder on a pole, set it away from ANYTHING ELSE within leaping distance and get a baffle for it. Seriously, if you don’t want to feed rats that evolved to be evolutionarily adorable, get into thwarting them. They’re fucking relentless.

Onto feeding birds. A simple basket suet feeder is perfect for your big body mass birds – jays, flickers, woodpeckers: they’ll all go for it. Even juncos will hit it too, so it’s a really good starter feeder. Speaking of birds and knowing what they are…

Get a Pocket Guide with Good Pictures

Good bird guides abound. Getting a good one with pictures and an indexing system that makes sense to you is INVALUABLE. MAKE SURE it is local to your area. If you’re in the coastal Carolinas, the same birds will not be in the PNW. Make sure you’re using regional words as you search for your field guide. It will save you a TON of trouble later.

I love this pocket guide for IDing birds near and in BC/WA/OR because the pictures are fantastic and frequently show sexual dimorphism which is helpful if you have a really plucky pale female always at your feeder and other guides only show REALLY FLASHY PICTURES OF MALES.

The other neat thing about this particular guide for people starting out is that it gives you the range of the birds and a little about them. But I think the biggest starter edge this book has is that the birds are sorted into groups by dominant color. So you’re looking for a mostly blue bird. Flip through the few mostly blue birds in the book and you should find your feathered friend in a few flips.

The guide will help you ID better than I can but seriously. A good guide is indispensable while you’re learning to ID your most common feeder birds.

Get Merlin on your phone

Look, you’re rarely going to see birds when you’re in the wild. But the next step is to get out there. Walk some trails. Head to a national/state forest/woodland park. LISTEN. You hear that sound? Those are the birds of your area. You’re likely not going to see the bird today andThat’s OK. Make your peace with it early. BUT, you can ID your bird and it’s song using Merlin. This app created by Cornell is crazy useful for IDing via bird song.

Basically download it and get started with the big green button for ‘Sound Identify’. Shut your mouth and let it listen to all the dulcet tones of the bird song around you. If there are many birds it will even pick out specific tunes and highlight among all heard the various parts each is singing in your foray chorus. Seriously, it’s super special.

I’d’ve never picked out our Olive-Sided Flycatcher’s call of “Quick, three beers” if it hadn’t been for Merlin’s help.

At the Edge of Madness

Look, I’m an AMATEUR birder. I’m not great at any of these things but this is the thing I suck at the hardest. I can’t catch birds on camera to save my fucking soul. My trail cameras have better luck which is FUCKING HILARIOUS cuz birds are some fidgety little fuckers which make for some usually very blurry photos. My recommendation is find someone who’s great at this through your local birding society (usually still Audubon, though that name is in flux in many areas due to his dubious past). They’re gonna help you SEE what you’re hearing once you’ve started to know what’s around you from auditory cues.

And to prove I’m shit at catching birds on camera here are my best bird trail cam pics. LMK if you have any tips I’ve forgotten or that you think might help. Happy hunting.