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Bird Watching -
A Year Round Recreation
Learn about
bird watching, and how you can attract your favorite birds. Do
you ever have a day when you have nothing to do ?, You know them
times when your on the internet in some chat room, and you type '
I'm bored ! ', or your flipping through the TV channels, and you say
to yourself or out loud ' 250 channels, and nothing good to watch !
', yes, you know what I am talking about. Now you have something you
can do on them so called boring days, go bird watching.
No matter where
you live you probably have birds of some kind, even folks in New
York have central park and other places where they can go bird
watching. There are three things you should have when bird watching,
these are a pair of binoculars, a notebook, and a bird guide.
Binoculars can be purchased for under $60 at most Kmart or Walmart
stores. Binoculars with a magnification of 10 x 50 are perfect for
bird watching. Don't think that a more powerful pair of binoculars
like 20 x 60 or 30 x 80 are better, this is not the case. Stronger
binoculars are fine if you are into star gazing, but they are
horrible for bird watching. The higher powered binoculars need a
tripod to use them without shaking, and even without a tripod, the
powerful binoculars are larger and can be very heavy to carry
around, the 10 x 50 ones are perfect for every occasion.
A small tablet
or notebook can be purchased at most stores, don't get nothing
expensive just a small spiral one will do fine. Now the last thing
is the most important item when it comes to bird watching. If you
are truly going to watch birds, you should know what type of birds
you are looking at when you spot a new one, so visit your local book
store or look in the birding section of an online bookstore, such as
amazon, at the end of this article I have a website address that has
some of Amazons best bird guides, videos, binoculars and more.
Ok, so you have
your binoculars, notebook and pencil, and your bird guide, now let's
go outside and go bird watching. I am sure you won't have to walk
very far to spot a bird or two. I am lucky enough to currently live
here in the country, all I have to do is open my door and I will
hear the sounds of birds. If I step outside my front door, I can
often see sparrows or finches, in the spring time the yard always
has a couple robins hopping around, and crows flying around the
nearby woods, high overhead I often see turkey buzzards soaring
against the blue sky. One time I opened my front door and across the
road in the top of a large tree a horned owl was sitting, it stayed
there for about 10 minutes, turning it's head often as it looked
around.
If you have any
grassy, wooded or open areas with trees or bushes, you can usually
find birds. One of the best things about bird watching is anyone can
do it, even if your in a wheelchair, you can sit and watch birds.
It's a great recreation for anyone that is alone, or for the whole
family to do together. When you go out, remember to take your bird
watching items with you, your binoculars, notebook and pencil, and
bird guide. When you spot a bird look in your binoculars too see all
it's beauty in close detail, if you do not recognize the species of
bird your seeing, get out your bird guide and look it up. When you
realize the type of bird you see, write down in your notebook the
following information; ' the name of the bird, the area where it was
spotted, the date, and time '. The information in your notebook,
helps you understand what types of birds frequent your area, it also
is pretty neat being able to read back and see when you spotted a
new or rare bird. If you have a yard, tree or even a window you can
attract birds by installing a simple feeder. Bird feeders are very
inexpensive and they have feeders that can hang on a tree branch, or
fence, or even stick to the outside of a window.
Attracting
different species of birds often requires different types of bird
seed and other food. Hummingbirds are attracted to red, pink and
orange flowers, they especially like trumpet vines or other
tubular-flowered plants, they are also very attracted to hummingbird
feeders filled with sugar water or red sweetened kool-aid. Robins
like mowed lawns, so in the spring and summer if you want to see
robins, mow your grass, the birds come looking for bugs and
earthworms that are more easily accessible because you cut the grass
length. Goldfinches love thistle seed, thistle is more expensive
then most common bird seed, but you cannot beat it if you want to
attract goldfinches. Blue Jays are large and sometimes noisy, but if
you want to bring them, put out a feeder full of black oil sunflower
seeds. Cardinals are very neat looking, there is nothing nicer than
looking out the window in the winter, and seeing a bright red
cardinal sitting on a nearby tree branch or feeder. Cardinals are
like Blue Jays, in that they both love a diet of black oil sunflower
seeds. If you want to attract sparrows, a bag of plain mixed bird
seed will do just fine.
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