Here are a few techniques for enjoying the fun of birding. Most are things you can do in your own back yard. Although we've sorted them by season, several of these tips are useful any time of year.
| Winter |
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Planting Flowers for Birds
Plans begin
in winter, when the seed catalogs arrive in your mailbox, to plant a garden
whose blossoms will invite birds of all kinds into your yard. |
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Hand Feeding Wild Birds
Your backyard birds can be eating from your hand this winter. This story, "Seeing Eye to Eye with Birds," tells how to win the trust of your backyard birds. |
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Feeding Birds in Winter
One of
the chief pleasures of winter is to be inside a warm house and look out
at the wild birds at the feeder. You get terrific entertainment all winter long. Here are
some tips for beginners on how to keep the birds coming back in winter |
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Downy vs. Hairy Woodpeckers
Many beginning birders have been fooled by the look-alike downy and hairy woodpeckers. The hairy is bigger, but it can be hard to judge size when you see one alone. How to distinguish them? The most important field mark is the bill. |
Spring |
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Watching Birds with your Ears
Learn to see through the leaves and around buildings, to hidden birds like this magnolia warbler. And a guide to bird song CDs that you can purchase online. |
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Helping Baby Birds
Here's what to do when your kids bring home a baby bird and ask if they can keep it. |
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Bird Baths
The best bird bath we ever had was one we made from a section of a fallen tree. Of course, now that we live in Iowa, where it freezes in winter, we prefer a heated bath. |
Summer |
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Birding from a Boat
Some of
the best birding in summer is from a boat. Birds sing and are active along
the river even when summer doldrums have made some birders hang up their
binoculars. Here is Michael and Diane's account of boating on the Skunk
River in Iowa in summer. |
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Jay Talk
Listening to jays screech, whistle, whisper, croak, rattle, and sing queedle-queedle-queedle, a person needs a dictionary of jay talk. But sometimes even without knowing exactly what it's all about, we get the drift. |
Fall |
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Why Feed Birds in Fall?
Wild birds scout out their winter food sources in fall, and that means they are deciding which backyards they will grace with their presence in winter. Here's how to let the birds know you want their business when the weather gets rough. |
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Brush Piles for Birds
As birdwatchers we can help to put habitat back. One way is to construct a brush pile.It's easy. Here is a recipe for building a brush pile, and a suggestion of what to expect if your build one. |
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Birding Links
The Internet
is a vast resource. Here are some sites that we have found useful, interesting,
or inspiring. Perhaps you will like them too. This list is not meant to
be all inclusive. It's only a sampling of the wide world of Internet birding. |
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