Wild Bird Feeding & Watching

Bird watching and feeding are popular for a variety of reasons. Not only are birds colorful to look at and fun to watch as they gather around your feeders, these little friends are actually stimulating to other senses besides sight, too.

Music to the Ears

Recording of birdsong are music to the ears for bird lovers worldwide. And with advance computer and Internet technology, bird tunes can be carried along almost anywhere.

Bird song is relaxing, enjoyable, entertaining. You can enjoy it while you are working, doing household chores, resting, even sleeping (with subliminal bird song recordings.) You can learn to recognize which birds make which sounds. And you can learn to identify nesting tunes, playful tunes, mating tunes and more.

A quick search of “bird song” on Google™ turns up more than 30,000,000 listings. You can get bird song identifier instruction and devices. And at the click of a button, you can listen to and identify bird clips right over the Internet in the privacy of your own home.

A short stop at Amazon.com and eBay auction sites turns up even more bird song goodies. Books, CD-roms, VHS tapes, DVDs, audio CDs and other recordings are available in all budget ranges boasting sounds for nearly any species of bird.

Of course don’t forget the public library! You can borrow cassettes, videos, DVDs, CDs, books and more about bird s ounds.

Fun Facts About Bird Song

Question: What bird's plaintive song gives it the name of "Jose Maria" in Mexico?

Answer:   The Greater Pewee's call sounds like "Ho-say, ma-re-ah," pretty darn close to sounding like “Jose Maria" in Spanish.

Question: Which songbird is so into water that it could almost be called a waterbird?

Answer:   The American Dipper, classified as a songbird, seeks insect larvae to eat along the bottom of mountain streams.

Question: Which songbird is the largest in North America?

Answer:   The Common Raven is largest, measuring between 22 to 27 inches in length, although many consider his sound a “croak” instead of song ?

So develop a broader sense of birding. Bring birds around more often and dance to the tune of their music while you get and keep them in your area longer with bird feeders.

Learn a lot more: The “Everything You Want to Know About Birdfeeders” Guide

Long-Term Birding Success Tips

Bird lovers new to birding often toss up a bird feeder, fill it with seed, then sit back and relax. But there’s so much more to the hobby than this. Learn long-term birding success tips from the pros.

Environments for Birds

Make your outdoor environment bird-friendly. Have plenty of room for sheltering birds during storms and for raising babies. If they have to leave, they may not return. So at least try to provide bird houses and trees with high, strong branches.
Everyone needs water, birds included. So set up a fountain, pond or other water area for birds for bathing and drinking. Keep areas clean and full of water, too. Don’t’ leave them unattended.

Feeding Wild Birds

Too many people forgot or simply stop filling up their birdfeeders. Birds remember. And you need to remembers, too. Fill ‘em up so they keep on coming back. Especially if you’ve done so during good weather, don’t stop once winter sets in. You’ve attracted the birds, and they’re counting on you to not let them starve during winter weather (otherwise they would have moved along). So don’t take this responsibility lightly.

Also, monitor your feeders for feeding frequency, predators and what the feedings are doing to your lawn and the rest of the environment. For example, if you are not monitoring activity off and on, and predators regularly get the food (like squirrels), your feathered friends may not be getting adequate food (or may become food to their predators), especially during cold months. And if too much seed husks are littering the lawn, killing grass, try a couple of solutions: experiment with different seed and try setting up trays under your feeders that can be emptied.

Traveling To Other Bird Locations

When birding at other locations, be attentive to your surroundings and respectful of the environment. Don’t litter the area with used photo cartridges or packaging, scribbled pages from journals, etc. And don’t trample wildlife areas. Respect signage, walk and travel lightly.

Regardless of where you live or travel, and what fun birding activities you enjoy, it’s always fun to feed birds. Feeding keeps them coming back. Birdfeeders make for long-term birding success in environments round the world for people of all ages to enjoy.
 

Getting a Closer Look at Birds

Bird watching and feeding birds with backyard feeders are two popular pastimes for people of all ages round the world. A verb created just for hobbyist in this field is “birding.”

Rated one of the fastest growing hobbies or pastimes, birding has attracted over 65 million people in American alone. And here are some favorite tips from American birding hobbyists for fellow bird watchers and bird feeders around the world.

Bird Watching Tips

Start a journal and track which birds you see in your area. On weekends, holidays and during any other special free times you may have, travel outside your locale and note other birds in the next city, county, opposite part of your state, neighboring state and even farther away.

For help planning birding trips, search for birding forums in your favorite search engines. Or contact local wildlife groups in the areas in which you want to travel. Your local AAA or travel agent can help connect you with resources to enhance your trip ahead of time, too.

Take along a camera and add color photos with your journal entries. Pick up stickers and colored markers or pencils along the way in souvenir shops, and enjoy adding creativity to your journal entries by sprucing up the pages.

Bird Feeding Tips

More than 800 species of birds live at least some of their lives in the North American region. Some of their favorite treats feature pinecones in the recipes. Tempt your feathered friends with this recipe for a delicious treat in your backyard: 

Hanging Pinecone Treat

Ingredients:
 - 1 pinecone
 - 1 piece of bread
 - Peanut butter, butter or another type of “fat’’ that is sticky
 - Bird seed that is appropriate for your little flying guests
 - Hanging device to tie around pinecone or insert into it so that birds can feed off the pinecone.

Spread the peanut butter on a piece of bread. The with the bread in one hand, pinecone in the other, roll the pinecone around on the bread so that the pinecone gets coated with peanut butter all the way around.

Last of all, sprinkle bird seed all over your pinecone. Then hang it outside for snack time.

More Successful Birding

A couple of activities that are enjoyed by birding hobbyists are journaling or scrap booking and photography. And both can go hand-in-hand.

Birding Journals and Scrap Booking

Bird lovers find pleasure in showing off their favorite feather friends to non-feathered ones. They do this best by keeping creative journals and scrap books about their birding livelihood. 

A journal or binder for your scrap booking needs does not have to be costly. In fact a simply black or white 3-ring binder from your local dime (or dollar) store or drugstore will work fine for starters. Insert notebook paper and begin.

You can start by listing birds you find right in your own backyard. Add pictures you find from magazines and online - print them, cut them out and paste or tape them into your project pages. Add colorful notes in markers or colored pencils, clip decorative framing for the photos with scrap booking scissors. Handwrite special notes on lined pieces of paper to insert into your pages, surrounding them with colorful coordinating photos of the birds.

Birding Photography

Grab an inexpensive throwaway camera while you save to invest in a digital one. And add birding snap shots of your own to your journals and scrapbooks. Take a photo course or two, and read up on how to take better photos. Often with a new camera purchase, like from Cord camera, you get a free photo shooting class. Other companies offer guides on free photo shooting and photo enhancement tips. So check around for a package deal.

Head to online auctions, too, like eBay for your birding, journaling, scrap booking and photography needs. You might even run into fellow birding enthusiasts while you’re there, too, who can offer more tips and advice for your projects – maybe even discounts  

Chat on birding forums, too, for the best finds. Many people keep birding journals and scrap books, so ask around. As your hobby grows, your budget may, too, and your new forum friends can help you get the best deals on new birding supplies for your projects.

Keep in mind, you do need to feed your feathered friends, though, to keep them happy and healthy. And awesome bird feeders are just the thing to keep these little friends coming back – and bringing their friends with them. So grab your copy of:

So develop a broader sense of birding. Bring birds around more often and dance to the tune of their music while you get and keep them in your area longer with bird feeders.

Learn a lot more: The “Everything You Want to Know About Birdfeeders” Guide

 Other things we like also dreamscenes