Get to Know Birds
Build birding skills by focusing on a favorite hot spot.
Some birders love to track numbers, chasing every last sighting to build a massive life list. Others are more interested in watching than counting. Watchers enjoy the chance to spot a new life species, but take more pleasure in observing the behavior of feathered friends, old and new. If you’re more of a watcher than a counter, patch birding is perfect for you.
“Patch birding is a focus on seeing what birds you can find at a specific place that’s special to you,” explains Ian Davies, Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s ebird project coordinator. “This could be a little park in the middle of a city, a pond you check before work, or the best birding hot spot in the state. What matters is that it’s yours.”
Think of a patch as a hangout where you feel so comfortable you could serve as a tour guide. You can point out the tall pine that is home to a bald eagle’s nest, or the creek that’s terrific for finding secretive night-herons. In this small space, you are the local birding expert.
Birding in patches builds skills, and you learn more about behavior like mating, nesting and foraging. I’ve observed adult red-bellied woodpeckers teaching their young to visit my bird feeders, delicately offering them seeds one at a time as they sit side by side in my own neighborhood patch. I know just when to expect the swallow-tailed kites to reappear each March, and I watch as the winter ducks, drab when they arrive in fall, don their mating plumage long before flying north in spring.
Because I know my patch locals so well, identifying similar birds is easier in other locations, too. Recognizing the quick shoreline foraging habit of a tricolored heron or the way a northern mockingbird sits with its tail cocked up makes it a cinch to distinguish these birds anywhere. Songs and calls are also more familiar: I know everything from the chipping of a cardinal to the harsh ek-ek-ek of a hunting kingfisher along the shoreline.
If you want to pick your own patch but aren’t sure where to begin, start locally. Think about parks and natural spaces you visit regularly. Check ebird’s recorded sightings and keep your own lists. Consider how to help preserve the area for wildlife, perhaps by volunteering or planting more bird-friendly flowers and shrubs.
Most of all, just go birding. The more time you spend in a place, the sooner the patch will feel like home. “Patch birding is a really fun way to give meaning to any place in the world,” Ian says. “It transforms any place into a familiar spot and teaches you a lot about the world around you.”
Jill Staake’s patch is in Tampa, Florida, where she’s watched more than 60 bird species from the comfort of her back porch.