Birding life

Scrolling through the all feed and didn't realize this was on a birding sub, and I really thought it was going to end with a joke about killing some rare bird species.

I like this version so much better, it's so wholesome and makes me want to get into birding

I’m a total casual. But it’s fun! Like real life pokémon haha
Do iiiitttt!! You don't need expensive equipment, a decent pair of 8×42 binoculars is enough to get started (I like Bushnell's). It's a great way to spend time in nature and it can make such a difference for your mental health. That is, until you run into your first nemesis bird. Then there's only rage...
- ... Nemesis bird?
i thought it'd be a joke about getting told to go to an abandoned farm & not getting kidnapped, with the punchline being "i would not survive a horror movie"

With eBird this is easier than ever. One centralized and publicly available database of bird sightings means you can find out exactly where and when a species was last spotted.

Thanks to the ebird map I was able to pinpoint the exact spot I needed and saw a whole family of bearded reedlings last week! It's truly amazing. A few other things I recommend:
Merlin app (free) - Shazam for birdsong. Also has helpful photos for ID, and can narrow down birds to the ones most likely to be in your area
Sibley birds app (paid) - digitalised bird ID book for birds in the Americas. Saves you from having to lug a heavy book around
Collins bird guide app (paid) - similar to the above but Europe focused
Birdingplaces website (free) - helpful if you're looking for recommended spots to find birds. Each entry usually indicates recommended routes.
Bird journal mobile/desktop app (free) - you have to sideload this one on mobile, and it hasn't been updated in years. However, I find it's the easiest to use if you want to make a record of the species you've seen.
Edit: I would be remiss if I didn't also share guidelines for ethical birding:
https://birdlife.org.au/how-to/ethical-birdwatching-guidelines/
Tl/dr: Don't get too close (especially around nests), don't make too much noise, don't mess with their habitat, don't feed wild birds or use playback to attract them.
Doesn't that kinda take the fun out of it?
- The fun of birding isn't necessarily the chase. Searching for a single bird species for years with no luck can be draining.

Honestly the birding tech that makes my heart swell is WhatBird. Being able to just have my phone record 15 seconds of audio and have the app spit out every possibility has opened my entire world. I'm finding birds I have never even heard of before.

Using WhoBird here. Similar functionality but open-source (so spyware-free). Available on F-Droid.
One thing I've learned is how many blackcaps I had been overlooking. Beautiful song, like a blackbird, but I'm finding it oddly hard to eyeball them.
- WhoBird is way better, you are correct. I switched recently, myself. I appreciate that they pull the model onto your phone so you can use it while hiking.
- I love WhoBird. I especially like that it can record each bird's song. When I'm sitting out in the yard, there are so many singing at once, playing back their songs with an ID helps a lot to identify the ones I can't see.
- Thank you for this recommendation. I always prefer open source and privacy focused apps.
I use Merlin, same thing.
Sometimes I’ll see on the list something it says is there and indignantly think to myself, ‘no way, I’d have seen/heard that’ only to turn around and see exactly what it said was there. And sometimes it gets fooled, usually by squeaky things and sometimes by mockingbirds.
It’s definitely still extremely cool. I really wish I’d had tech like this when I was a kid interested in birds and had nobody to teach me anything more advanced than backyard birds, and no way of figuring out what all the bird song mnemonics in guide books actually sounded like.
- It is definitely not the only tool a serious birder should use, but, paired with a monocular and a traditional bird book? I am spotting 100x the birds I used to as a kid.
  Side note, I am so excited that there is a vibrant birding community here! I have been interested in it since I was a young autistic boy. It's amazing how fruitful of a hobby it can be when you can only afford a 60-year-old bird book from the thrift store. 😀
I've onboarded my retired in laws on all of the nature apps and they have been having so much fun actually learning and understanding their environment. AI haters can never understand how much value these technologies bring to normal people.
- From what i know its a different type of AI compared to the hated ones so they really are good