The most rudimentary things you need to know about how and where to find birds to observe

The first thing you need to know about bird-watching is that you don’t have to have any fancy equipment or go anywhere special. Those things can certainly enhance your birding experience, but the two most basic things you need to watch birds is interest and a little bit of patience. I say this because you will need at least a few minutes – the more time you have to remain still and quiet, the more behaviors you will be able to observe. The more you move or make noise, the more birds will feel threatened by your presence, and they will leave the area you are in. But the less you move and the quieter you are, the less threatening you will seem.

Where to find them?

As long as you can go or look outside, you will see birds eventually. You may have to take a few more steps outside, because birds come to areas where there is food, water, and/or shelter. If your patio has no plants or trees nearby, or has dogs or cats moving through it, they won’t come there. But you can find birds even in urban environments where there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of plant life. Grackles, pigeons, house sparrows, starlings, crows and even some raptors like peregrine falcons have all adapted to urban environments due to the abundance of food we humans throw away. They may not seem like the prettiest birds, but they are interesting to watch if you can stay for a few minutes.

Even your neighborhood or city parks can support a surprising number of birds. Grackles, cardinals, doves, mockingbirds, vireos, warblers, ducks and geese, coots and gallinules, herons and egrets, woodpeckers, flycatchers, sparrows, and hawks may all be found in urban or suburban green spaces.

Variety is the spice of life

The more green space and plant variety an area has, the more birds there will be in general. A greater variety of plants supports a greater variety of birds. If a green space has grassy meadows, wooded areas, and ponds, for example, then it can support all the birds that live in those areas. Such a place may have sparrows, warblers, vireos, kinglets, titmice, chickadees, flycatchers, buntings, woodpeckers, herons and egrets, rails, ducks and geese, hawks, falcons, owls, and more.

But even small green spaces can support a large number of bird species depending on their location. Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary in Freeport, Texas, for example, is only 4 acres large, and yet has a total recorded species count of 338, according to eBird (see the top 100 hotspots by species count here: https://ebird.org/region/US-TX/hotspots). The reason for such a high species count over such a small area is the fact that it is a major stopping point for birds migrating both across the Gulf of Mexico and along the Texas Gulf Coast.

What is a hotspot?

In order to answer this question, first we must answer another: What is eBird? I won’t go into eBird in detail here, but will dedicate another article to it and a couple other online bird identification resources later. To put it briefly, eBird (https://ebird.org/home) is an online database where users record bird observations – sightings, photographs, sound recordings. There is also an app that is supported by both Apple and Google.

Hotspots are public places other people regularly go to observe birds. Among other features, eBird has an Explore feature, with which you can explore by species or by location, including all the hotspots in that location. On the mobile app, the Explore feature allows you to explore all the hotspots either within the region nearest your current location or within a 30-mile radius from your current location, or by manually picking a location on the map. You can, of course, record your exact location instead of using a specific hotspot, but it will be considered a personal location rather than a hotspot.

What else do I need to watch birds?

To be honest, nothing. You don’t need anything else to enjoy watching birds. However, there are a few things that enhance your bird-watching experience. A pair of binoculars, for example, makes it much easier to get a closer look at birds without physically moving yourself closer. This is particularly important for nesting birds, as you don’t want to force them to use the energy they need for building their nest or laying their eggs or raising their chicks to get away from you.

Then of course, there are things that keep your birding experience from being physically unpleasant. Such things include weather-appropriate clothes and shoes, bug spray, and sun screen. In some places the best season for birding may be too cold yet for mosquitoes to be a problem, but in others they’re a problem year-round. In such places you’ll find that long sleeves and pants and closed-toed shoes and bug spray are indispensable. You should also always check the weather forecast before you go. You may of course just accept that weather can be unpredictable and take both an umbrella or poncho and sunscreen, or dress in layers for a day that may start out with temperatures in the 30s and reach the 60s by early afternoon.

So how to see more birds?

Practice. You may feel like you don’t notice very many birds at first. But the more you bird, the more birds you notice. Your eyes get use to noticing small movements, and learn how to tell the difference between grass moving in the wind and grass moving because something small is moving in it. But don’t forget to keep one eye in the trees, one eye in the sky, and one eye on the ground! I know that sounds like nonsense, but the truth is you need to pay attention to your whole surroundings. If you spend too much time looking deep into the trees for a glimpse of a warbler you think you might have seen, you might miss the eagle soaring overhead or the beautiful painted bunting in the grass 20 feet away.