How to Find Birds
The most common question I get from other birders is how to know where the birds are.
There are a lot of different answers to this, depending on how serious you want to get about searching for them.
The easiest answer is to just go outside where you are and look around. Even in urban environments, with a bit of patience you’ll start noticing the birds. You aren’t likely to see exotic or rare birds this way, but as a way to go out and practicing looking through the binoculars at birds, you can often do so from your front or back porch. Find a local community park and wander through it and see what you find. If you have a local park that has water features — a small pond, or even some fountains, you can find some interesting birds there — I call these “Mallard Magnets”, because you’ll almost always find some hanging out there.
There are a couple of suggestions I’ll make as you start your searches: first, you want to look in the places where people aren’t. Birds will shy away from areas with movement and noise, so look for the quieter and more secluded parts of the park, because that’s what the birds will do, too. Also, while you’re going to want to move around and see what you find, be aware that this movement will also be seen by the birds and make them wary. What I do most of the time is go to a spot to study, and then sit and wait to see what happens. As you stop moving, you reduce how birds see you as a threat, and they will allow themselves to come closer.
These sit times are good opportunities to practice a few finding skills, like listening for sounds made by birds (or other animals — you’ll figure out what the local squirrels sound like quickly) and trying to sense what direction it’s coming from. Also keep an eye out for unusual movement in the foliage: if a bush is swaying in the breeze, that’s the wind. If one specific branch is moving around, it’s worth watching more closely.
There’s a tradeoff between exploring a space widely and sitting and watching and allowing birds to get comfortable and come into view where you are. I’ll typically sit in a spot for five minutes or so and then consider whether to keep at it or move on. I prefer a slower pace to my explorations, which I think allows me to limit how much I scare off the birds and more time to enjoy studying the details of what’s around me. That said, there are times I show up in a place, sit for five minutes, pack my gear and move on because it’s clear that it’s just not happening. As you go out birding over time, you’ll figure out what pace works well for you, but always keep in mind that slower and quieter makes you less intrusive on the birds around you, so they’re less likely to fly away from you.
Find your local birding group
After birding your local locations for a while, you’ll likely want to explore more widely. But where to go?
Most regions will have other birders and many times they’ve organized into a group that shares information about what they know about birding locally. For instance, if I type “kitsap county birdwatching” into a search engine, the first link returned is “Where to Bird?” published by the Kitsap Audubon Society, a local chapter affiliated with the National Audubon Society. Finding that guide for your local area will point you to the move popular birding locations in that region. They might also have a flyer you can print out and use when trying to decide where to explore.
You should also check to see if that group offers organized groups where you can go out with others to some birding location. These are usually lead by one or two people who know the location well and are experienced in helping newer birders — and you might find a new birding buddy among the other attendees as well. Getting on your local birding group’s update list will help you know about these upcoming events.
Some groups have online discussion areas you can connect to where what’s being seen is shared and discussed. I ran the South Bay Birds email list for Santa Clara County for many years, and it has long been a key resource for finding out what’s going on in the county. You may also find facebook groups about your local area, and more and more regions are creating Discord groups to discuss local birding.
eBird will help
eBird, managed by Cornell’s Laboratory of Ornithology, can be a big help here as well. If you create an account, you can go to Explore->Alerts and set it up for eBird to send you emails with what’s going on. There are two kinds of alerts:
Rare bird alerts: You can set up an email notice whenever a rarity is reported in a given region. These reports cover the unusual birds that aren’t normally seen, giving you the ability to go and try to see it, too, if you choose. I have mine to watch Kitsap County and it might send me an email once an hour with new sightings that happen. You can also option to get the report once a day.
Needs alert: eBird sends me a needs alert email once a day, which shows all of the reports for any species in a given region that I have not yet added to my year list for that region.
The needs alert works best if you are using eBird to track what you’re seeing, and we’ll cover keeping lists in the next chapter.
Every evening, I get an email showing me all the birds being seen here in Kitsap County that I haven’t yet seen. If a bird considered unusual for the county is seen, I’ll get an email almost immediately, giving me an option to go and see if I can find it as well. I’ve also set up daily reports for surrounding counties.
These reports both give me hints on what birds to go looking for, and since the report links to the eBird reports made, and those have links to maps that show the general location where the birder saw that species. This can really help you locate specific species and identify new places to go out and explore.
