Birding 101
"When you're looking for birds, you're focused on what's around you."
– Christian Cooper
Use our resources to learn how to identify common birds in our area, such as this brown thrasher seen carrying nesting material at our Fred Archibald Audubon Sanctuary. Photo by Crystal Kunst
Go Birding!
Beyond being fun, birding is a relaxing way to connect with nature and decompress and destress from everyday life. Whether you go alone or with friends all you need is curiosity, binoculars and a field guide! The below resources will help get you started.
Bird ID Techniques
The basics: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has short videos on techniques for identifying birds and using the eBird app:
eBird Essentials – eBird is an app that enables you to report your sitings and build your life list.
Selecting a field guide: There are many choices so be sure to check out Cornell’s review of the most popular guides.
Selecting binoculars: There are many brands of binoculars that come in different sizes and price ranges. To decide which on is best for you go to the Audubon Guide to Binoculars, or Cornell’s review of 8x42 full size binoculars.
Bird ID Apps: Having one or more apps on your smart phone can be great resource for identifying birds by sight or song when you are outdoors. Below are some of the most popular, all of which are available to download from your smart phone’s app store.
Audubon Bird Guide is free and covers over 800 North American bird species. You can share photos on the app and keep up with the latest news about birds—from conservation to outreach opportunities.
Cornell Lab’s Merlin Bird ID is free and has an easy-to-use bird ID wizard that can be used all over the world. It asks you a few questions about the bird in question (color, size, location) and then gives you a few possibilities of what it may be. Merlin Bird ID can also identify a bird from a photo and from bird songs and calls.
Sibley Guide to Birds app covers birds of the U.S. and Canada.
iNaturalist is free and can be used to report local sightings and help you identify the birds, other wildlife, and plants that you’re seeing. It works well for collecting your local observations and to see what others around the world are finding.
Where to Bird
The National Audubon Society online field guide lets you search by region to see what bird species are there along with descriptions of habitat, behavior, and vocal clues to help with identification.
The Maryland Ornithological Society (MOS) has curated a list of great birding spots throughout Maryland.
Cornell’s eBird.org lets you explore regional birding hot spots around the world and view checklists to see what species are being seen. Alternatively, you can search on a species to see where it can be found.