Flocking together
In Will County, forest preserves offer birding opportunities
If you’re looking for a lowkey winter activity that’s engaging but also free, you may want to check out birding.
Bird watching is a fun hobby that millions of people around the world enjoy that can be done literally anywhere there are birds. The Forest Preserve District of Will County is doing its best to help educate beginners and pros alike with its winter birding programs.
Bob Bryerton, a Forest Preserve program coordinator, will lead a morning bird hike Jan. 16 at Plum Creek Nature Center in Beecher and a Winter Bird Hike Feb. 6 at Four Rivers Environmental Education Center in Channahon. He is also doing a “Breakfast with the Birds” Zoom Webinar Jan. 22.
The hikes and webinar are free but require advance registration via the district’s website.
“The thing with birding is, you can participate at any level you want,” he said. “Some people just put out a feeder and that’s enough for them. Other people want to go out and see birds. As you get into it a little more … you start to count the birds you see or at least the species. Then it’s kind of like, how many species can I get? That’s the next step. It gets you out of the house.”
Birding is a great winter activity, he said, especially with limited options right now.
“Birding is a way to get you outside and increase your appreciation of nature,” he said. “Birding will slow you down a little bit and get you to notice more things. If you are looking for birds, you’re usually going a little slower and being a little more patient and a little more quiet and usually other things will reveal themselves. You can see deer, raccoons and squirrels. It’s a cool way to experience the outdoors.”
Winter is a prime time to feed birds because their food sources aren’t as plentiful as in warmer times.
Birding is a popular activity with millions of people all over the world doing it, he said, and the Forest Preserve tries to offer ways to enhance the experience.
“Our programs try to encourage people to get out and try to help people identify what’s here or what’s likely to be here. We also try to provide them tools and tricks that they can use on their own to make their experience in the woods a little bit more enjoyable.”
“The morning bird hike is a general bird hike,” he said. “We basically take a walk through the preserve and see what birds we can see or hear.”
He will talk about the calls too because sometimes birds won’t cooperate and show themselves off, he said.
“Some days birds will come really close and let you look at them and it’s easy to identify them and other days they’re skittish and they’ll hide behind every tree branch they can find and you’re not going to get a good look at them,” he said.
The Zoom webinars started in response to the pandemic, but have proven successful, he said.
“It’s basically a virtual hike,” he said. “I will go out in the morning and hike a preserve and photograph what I see, however many birds I see or whatever is going to cooperate. Then I’ll recreate the hike in the presentation. It’s kind of
like you’re on the bird hike with me.”
He will give tips and tricks for identifying the birds and walk the participants through the identification process and talk about the trail and the preserve as well.
“A normal bird hike would be for people who are available to meet that day and come to the preserve and walk with me, which is really great. And actually, if you want to get started with birding, that’s probably the best way you can do it. Go out with someone else who knows birds already and can let you know what you’re seeing. The virtual hike, I try to replicate that as much as I could. I find that I reach people who can’t come to the hike or are maybe far enough away that they may never come to that specific preserve, but they’re picking up tips and tricks. I try to go around the county and pick different preserves. I find we are reaching a wider audience.”
To help newbies get started with birding as a hobby, he urged people to head to the Forest Preserve District’s website, reconnectwithnature.org, for birding resources, he said.
“This last year in particular, there’s been quite a few articles. Articles on different species, articles on rare birds,” he said.
Then, download a birding app like Merlin, put out by the Cornell Institute of Ornithology, which helps users identify birds and more, he said. Another app by the Cornell Institute of Ornithology is called eBird, which is a tracking app that will help you keep your lists of birds you’ve seen.
“If you participate … you’re going to contribute to science because eBird is basically a big database of all birds in the world. Millions of birders are submitting lists every day. That’s helping scientists learn more about bird movement — where they’re showing up, where they’re not showing up, stuff like that. You can access all that as well. If you want to see eagles, it will show you where people are seeing eagles.”
If you want to attract birds to your own house, the easiest thing to so is set out a bird feeder filled with black sunflower seeds or suet or even peanut butter — something high in fat, he said. You’ll also want to plant some shrubs or other native plants which provide food and shelter, he said.
“The whole thing is about establishing a habitat,” he said. “Once we start migration and other birds start coming through, you will start to recognize that they’re different. This is a good time of year to learn.
“Birding is a great way to experience the preserves or parks in your area. It makes you slow down a little … it’s a gateway into nature and gets you started noticing all the other stuff around you.”