Birding
Skills
Birding
Gear, Resources, Trip Planning, and More
Why We Love Birding
We love birding not only because we love watching beautiful birds, but because birding brings us to some of the most amazing ecosystems in the world.
A few examples include Los Quetzales National Park in Costa Rica where we saw our first resplendent quetzal and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains in Northern Colombia where we watched Andean Condors flying overhead.
Birding 101
It’s not that hard to find amazing birding destinations. However, it’s not always that easy to find the most amazing birds in these destinations.
Do some research to determine the best time of year, best time of day, and best location to see the birds you want to see in each location. Consider hiring a local guide since you’ll probably see more birds in a single day with a guide than you could see over several days on your own. Patience is key. For example, during our overland expedition through New Zealand, we spent many hours waiting for a single yellow-eyed penguin emerge from the ocean and walk to her nest in the forest (yes, yellow-eyed penguins nest in the forest which explains why they became endangered in New Zealand when Europeans arrived and cut down most of the trees).
Our Birding Gear
The primary gear we use for birding are binoculars (Nikon Monarch M5 8 x 42 Binoculars), a scope (an Opticron MM4 50 GA ED/45 Travelscope) and a tripod for our scope.
Our Birding Resources
Here are some of our favorite birding resources. We look forward to your feedback on this list!
Bird identification
- Audubon Bird Guide App (Android and IOS app)
- Birdsnap App (IOS, free)
- iBird App (IOS, free)
- Merlin Bird ID App (IOS, free)
Trip planning
- Audobon is a good resource to identify birding destinations. It’s a bit hard to find articles on each region. Try searching for birding followed by the name of the region and then look for the appropriate articles.
- Birding Places is a great resource to identify birding destinations in Europe
- Exotic Birding is a website with information on birding tours offered by Exotic Birding in Africa, Asia, Australia, Central America and South America which we use to identify birding destinations in these regions
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