Projects & Gifts
for a Child Birdwatcher

Many birders date their interest to the influence of a teacher, relative, or friend who first drew their attention to birds.

The greatest gift is your time — watching birds
yourself with a child. Birdwatching unites people across generations.

Kids love the game of identifying birds by their appearance, songs, and behavior. Children with their young ears may surprise you by picking up bird songs you may have missed. It can be a real ear opener to go birding with a child.

Binoculars — the gift of seeing up close

Children deserve to have decent optical equipment, so that they have the thrill of seeing wild birds up close. But it's often a good idea to start with a binocular that is not extremely expensive.

We recommend the economical Eagle Optics Energy seven-power binocular. The Energy comes in 5 colors, so that it's possible for each child in a family to have his or her own recognizable binocular.

Books — the gift of knowledge

Kids love to learn the names of birds. Call the birds in the back yard by their specific names, and the child will quickly realize there are many different kinds of birds.

A bird book helps, depending on the child's age. There's a new book (published in 2008) that is written with the help of the author's daughter's class at school. It's The Young Birder's Guide to the birds of Eastern North America. Our guess it it's about right for a mid teenager, and that it could be enjoyed by a pretty good reader of about 8 years old, and that is will be right for kids in between those ages.

The only drawback is that it's only the birds of Eastern North America. So it's not much help to a kid in California or Utah.

Another good choice is the Beginner's Guide to Birds, for the Eastern or Western Region. It's appropriate for adults as well as kids.

An activity book, such as Take a Backyard Bird Walk, is also fun, for kids up to about 12 years old.

See more bird books for kids, even including something for babies! There's also a great DVD made for children. It's called Birding for Kids.

Bird songs — learning to see with your ears

Half the fun of watching birds is listening to their songs and learning to recognize who is singing. The Identiflyer is a hand-held player that links the song of the bird with the picture. Push a button next to the bird's picture, and hear the song.

Better yet is the iFlyer. Just swipe the wand across a bar code, and hear the song right now. It comes with a nice little book with good color pictures to link the bird to the sound.

— Copyright 2008 Diane Porter

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