New Hobby Birdwatching

[Amore55]

I have taken up a new hobby, birdwatching. I am enjoying it immensely. A good friend of mine has been enjoying this with her husband for years and I was intrigued by it, as I have always been a fan of watching birds. So, I purchased some binoculars and for my sobriety birthday this aforementioned friend gifted me a National Geographic Bird book. Off I go to various sites which I have found helpful on the Idaho Bird website. I take my trekking poles, water, binoculars, phone and head out. I intensely enjoy myself. I don’t want to get to the point where I can’t do these things anymore and regret not doing them. I’m in constant pain (next post), , but I find that I feel better when I am outside. I will try to remember to post some pictures later! Love to all, Kelly

[RoyceNewton]

Now that sounds fun, very relaxing.

[Kit10]

Great! I have liked birdwatching all my life, though I'm in the UK so no idea what you might see in Idaho, look forward to your pictures.

[NorasMom]

I'm not as energetic as you, but once I went on Disability I added it to my activities. I was spending a lot of time on the back porch, so I bought binoculars and a camera and borrowed my son's bird books. I still don't know the difference between a wren and a sparrow, but I do enjoy watching them. 😀

[Humbrd]

Happy for you! Glad your enjoying the outdoors. 🐦

[jimeka]

Enjoy, I hope you are keeping a record of all you see 👍🕊️

[Amore55 in reply to jimeka]

What a good idea! I have not been doing that, but I will definitely start!

[BlanketTime1]

first, congrats on your anniversary!🙌 bird watching sounds quite relaxing. happy you can enjoy it.🤗

[Graip76]

I am amazed at how many bird species there are and how ornate they can be. I look forward to seeing your pictures 🕊️🦆🦜🦅

[falalalala]

I love birdwatching too.

It is one of my hub's & my favorite things to do.Now I take the chair or the PPV to do it because walking and looking up at the same time is a PITA (literally)😂

I started to bring a camera on our walks to remember what I saw & it came in handy when ID-ing them.

We also brought the dog & she didn't seem to disturb any of the birds.

We'd put out a few seed piles so I could get some photos and sometimes they'd wait for us in the trees.

We also got black capped chickadees to take seed from our hands. :)😁

Black capped chickadee

[Peruzzot]

I have an app on my phone called Merlin. It helps identify birds by taking a photo of a bird then it searches through a database of birds in that particular area for the season you're in. It's not always accurate though, especially if there is a lot of vegetation in the photo or if it is a little blurry.

Over the years I have taken at least a million photos of birds. Now that I have a digital camera it is a slow day, when I go out hiking and take less than 200 photos of whatever happened to catch my eye on that particular hike. Most of those photos are of birds, with several being of the same bird. Last week I took several photos of some ospreys and a bald eagle. At one point the bald eagle got a little to close to the osprey nest and ruffled the feathers of the ospreys. The ospreys attacked the eagle and the eagle took off leaving the nest alone after that. I had never seen an eagle hangout in the same area as ospreys before. I got one photo that would have been really awesome if it wasn't slightly out of focus. The eagle was flying upside down trying to use its claws to defend itself against the larger of the two ospreys.

[MarkUpnorth]

I have feeders set perfectly for watching from my seat at the kitchen table. Black sunflower seeds in one, and safflower in another. The big predatory birds feed on all the birds coming to the feeders. Set up a spotting scope and could watch how the different birds eat the same thing differently. When I walk, I simply walk theses days. No cane anymore, but the trecking poles are a good idea. Still have one waiting in my cane rack by the front door. Will take next woods hike, thanks.

[hairbrain4]

That's awesome! I've been outside for the past 3 days working in my mother n laws yard & the birds were awesome but today they just shot drive me nuts! They were fighting along with really loud singing from all the different birds all at once. It was in like every instrument in my an orchestra playing notes from different songs at different tempos. It's spring!

[Tazmanian]

Congratulations