Feeling blue? Learning to bird-watch is as easy as going outside and gazing skyward.
I fyou’re like me, the continuing shelter-in-place order and endless pandemic headlines have me wanting to crawl into my closet and stay there for a couple of months. Before mounting a retreat, however, I glanced at the window for one last look outside, and — oh, wait. Are those birds out there? Maybe we have a reason to hope — and a promising new hobby. Just ask any birder you can find — from a safe distance, of course — how peaceful and uplifting bird-watching can be. If you’re looking for something to improve your outlook or fight back the tedium, backyard bird-watching could be for you. You don’t need any special equipment or experience to get started, but I’m betting my stash of toilet paper that you’ll want to pick up a few things once you get into it.
How to start
Bird-watching is as ridiculously easy as looking out your window and, well, seeing some birds. Knowing where to look and what you’re looking at is more of a challenge, but if you find joy, peace and happiness in watching unidentified birds, that’s perfectly fine, too.
If you want to get serious about it, however, there are a few things you can do. Scope out your backyard, if you have one, or keep your eyes open on your next neighborhood walk looking for places where birds congregate — areas with trees, shrubs and flowering plants are a good bet.
Investing in a bird book will help you identify what you’re seeing. I’ve had good luck with “Birds of Northern California” by David Fix and Andy Bezener (Lone Pine Press), but there are many different books on the market, as well as online guides.
(Order those books from your favorite Bay Area indie bookstore. Their doors may be shuttered during the shutdown, but many of those bookshops are doing online sales and some offer same-day delivery.)
You’re not going to be venturing outside your own neighborhood for a while, so books that are regional or specific to your area are the better option. I’ll be honest with you. It’s not always easy to identify birds from book descriptions or even photographs. Birds look different in real life. And if you have a book on birds of the world, you’re going to be disappointed when you think you’ve identified a bird, and it only lives in Madagascar.
The Bay Area is home to hundreds of bird species. Some visit only during certain times of the year. But spring is a great time to see a wide variety.
The most common birds you’re likely to see in Bay Area neighborhoods are finches, mourning doves, Northern mockingbirds, California scrub-jays, crows, wrens, sparrows and hummingbirds.
You may find yourself discovering more birds with your ears than your eyes. It takes practice to identify a bird by its call, but the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
— www.birds.cornell.edu/home — has an extensive library of birdsongs that will help. (That site also holds a wide array of fascinating articles and media archives, so spend some time browsing.) You also can get apps on your phone that will — maybe — identify recordings of the birds. I’ve had mixed results with those.
For fun, start a list of the birds you see. In the birding world, that’s called a life list, and it can grow fairly quickly.
Stepping it up
Bird-watching can become addictive and while it’s enjoyable to watch the finches building their nests or the scrub-jays fighting with the squirrels, you might yearn to add different birds to your life list.
This is where bird feeders and birdbaths come in. Adding food sources to your yard will attract more birds.
Mike Eliot, who owns Pleasant Hill’s Wild Birds Unlimited, suggests beginners start with a tube feeder and use seed blends that are very clean and fresh, with no filler seeds. These blends contain seeds, Eliot says, that appeal to the most common Bay Area birds.
(Like many animal and pet supply stores, Wild Birds Unlimited’s doors are closed, but it’s doing phone orders; pleasanthill.wbu.com.)
When you’re ready to branch out, you can add different feeders — tray, hopper, suet, cylinder, Nyjer (thistle), hummingbird, oriole and nut feeders — along with different foods that appeal to the not-so-common birds.
Adding a water source to your yard also will attract birds, providing not only drinking water for them but a place to wash their feathers and preen.
The birds will be easy to see, but if you want a good look at the coloring and unique feather patterns, the next step would be to get a pair of binoculars.
If you run into problems identifying birds or attracting them to your yard, help is just a phone call or email away. Wild Birds and other nature stores have folks who are happy to answer questions and make suggestions; you also can check with area chapters of the National Audubon Society.
So now’s the time to pull a chair up to your window or find a quiet spot on your porch or patio, and watch.
Bird-watching in your neighborhood or yard is educational — and may even raise your spirits