• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

What Bird Got You Interested in Birding? (1 Viewer)

It wasn't a bird but more a place for me. I moved very close to Lake Monger and walked around it and discovered the various ducks and other waterbirds that were there. I then visited Bayswater Bird Sancturary and did the same.

Then we drove over the Nullabor to Adelaide and while in Adelaide the urge got it's grip (there are so many birds in Adelaide that aren't around in Perth) and I HAD to get a bird ID book RIGHT AWAY! I bought Simpson & Day and haven't stopped birding since. Binoculars really helped out too - got them when I returned from Adelaide.
 
For me it was probably the bird song rather than any particular bird , as a youngster in the early fifties my family moved to a house in the country and for the fisrt time in my life I was woken by the dawn chorus , something that is still with me today . This started a life times interest in birds.They never cease to amaze me and have given me many hours of peace and pleasure and hopefully will continue to do so for many years to come.
 
Joern, that was quite an "introduction" to Birding 101. I guess it could have been a "love/hate" relationship with birds! I am glad, for you, it turned out to be the former!

Gemfyre, I began birding with no binoculars, no books and no mentor! My eyes were really opened when I got some binoculars. And, "Oh My", when I looked through someone's KOWA scope on a group, birding field trip I just had to get a scope. I did not know if I could really be that extravagant and spend "that much money", but after about three years I "took the plunge" and got a TSN-4 KOWA with 20-60 zoom. There has been no looking back!
 
Dick, a few years ago there were several Whooping Cranes and one COMMON CRANE mixed in with the thousands of Sandhill Cranes up at Kearney, Nebraska. We went up and saw all the Sandhills but we also were unable to see a Whooping and were always just a little late for the Common. "It was here about an 30 minutes ago, you just missed it!", was an all to usual reply to our question, "Where is it?"
 
I had seen a number of suburban birds. Then I was somehow interested in seeeing more birds of the woods on my son's scout trips. Various woodpeckeres kept me interested in March. I never thought of going anywhere FOR the birds for a year. I just carried binoculars around for a while.

The first in the list I eventually made was Starling. I was impressed by the big flock. I knew it was a city bird, mostly. Have seen it in many places now.
 
Well Larry, now that I think about it, my grandparents had a camp on the river we use to visit on weekends. When I was around seven, I got up early one morning and went outside to sit with my grandfather on his swing. He started whistling, and I ask him what he was whistling at. He told me the bird that lives in that house, up in that tree. I looked at the house and told him no bird could fit into that tiny hole, and about that time a Wren flew into the house, came back out, and started singing on the wooden perch. So for me, the House Wren is what started it all.

Kevin.......
 
Among the many sightings that inspired increasing levels of interest for me I guess two stand out in my mind. One, Popeye V, the American Robin I recovered from a cat attack as a child. THere were many Popeye's and none made it back to the wild. But Popeye V was the one that after a month living with me, nearly, nearly, nearly made it and broke my heart in the process (the cat got what he was after in the end). That awoke the first feelings that I needed to do things to help the animals I saw stay alive and wild, not just look at them.

Second, the pair of Bald Eagles that landed to bathe in a big puddle in a corn field across the street from my parent's house on the Chesapeake at a time when that was a very unexpected thing to happen (happily not so any longer). That's when I realized I could see incredible birds right near home.
 
Last edited:
Larry Lade said:
Dick, a few years ago there were several Whooping Cranes and one COMMON CRANE mixed in with the thousands of Sandhill Cranes up at Kearney, Nebraska. We went up and saw all the Sandhills but we also were unable to see a Whooping and were always just a little late for the Common. "It was here about an 30 minutes ago, you just missed it!", was an all to usual reply to our question, "Where is it?"
Click to expand...

Larry,

Good Heavens! That would have been a "megatick" indeed, as our British friends would say. A few years back a bunch of us from the Black Hills of SD drove to Ogallala, NE, to see a Tufted Duck -- better luck, everyone got the bird! My only real "twitch", LOL!

In another post you mentioned your first scope: I just upgraded to a Zeiss 85, got it last week, and now I'm like a kid with a new toy -- what a marvel!

Dick
 
bird that started it all

Has to be the Northern Cardinal! When we moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and looked into the yard of our rented house I was absolutely amazed to see a bird in such a vivid colour. I'd never seen anything like it except in an avairy at the zoo! And to think it was a common garden bird - visiting our feeders a few feet from the dining room window. When I bought a car over there I had Cardinal number plates, I did a cardinal cross-stitch picture, bought a cardinal night-light ...........It was over a year before our yard was visited by a ruby-throated hummingbird. I guess that beats the cardinal for exoticness (in a Brit's eyes anyway), but the cardinal will always be my favourite bird and the one that got me looking at birds closely, making lists, joining bird clubs and all the rest. Couldn't switch my baseball support from Reds to Cardinals though ;) ;)
 
For me it was the Common Yellowthroat Warbler.
I was out in the field/alder thicket behind my house, in the middle of the city, across from a mall, with an old pair of binocs and my 3-volume set of the Audubon Field Guide Master Set. (try carrying that around in a fanny pack).
Eventually I spotted this little yellow bird with the black and white mask. I got real excited; even more so when I actually identified it in the book! I didn't think birds like that actually existed outside of books.
After that I began to think," if I can see a bird like that in my own back yard with so little effort, imagine what else is out there if really go looking".

Shortly after that I joined the local bird club, and today I am one of the "go to guys" for mystery bird ID.

Dan
 
I have enjoyed watching and photographing birds for years. But it wasn't until I was "attacked" by a Rufus Hummingbird while hiking in the mountains of southern Nevada that I broke down and bought a guide book. It was a downhill slide from there.

bob
 
Starling.

It was about a year ago, I looked out my bedroom window, and saw a brown bird with white flecks on it- it was beautiful, and there were a LOT of them! I dusted off the field guide (which I had but had never used), and spent about an hour (|:$|) , during which they were about every brown bird in the book, until I came to the Starling, which was a perfect match.

Within a week I got another one-hour ID, this time a house sparrow, and I was hooked!
 
I was always interested in birds right from a very young age, but sort of forgot about them a bit through the later years of school and university because it wasn't "cool" and i would rather chase birds of the non feathered kind. Then one New Years Eve a few years ago i went for a bushwalk whilst waiting for festivities to start and saw an Olive Whistler which then got taken by a Collared Sparrowhawk, both of which were new birds for me.... so needless to say I got the bug hard again and have not stopped since :)
 
Apparently I used to be taken out in my pushchair with my dad, and soon was a keen birdwatcher. However the bird that turned me into a birder was a female long-tailed duck at Titchwell about 18 years ago. We came up to Norfolk for a family holiday on the first day we went to Titchwell and there was this lt duck just swimming around in front of island hide. The bird inspired me (as did the place) and I've been a birder since.
 
Hi

I am not sure there was any one bird that got me birding as I have always had a strong interest in Natural History, that said there are a few magical moments that stand out in my memory!

One of the first inspiring moments was during one winters day. It was a cold day in Cornwall and I was on my way back from primary school. I looked into this field and could see lots of amazing looking birds. These birds were green with long crests on the top of there heads. I had seen nothing like this before and thought I have found some strange unusual birds. I ran home and told my mother, she quickly informed me that I had seen some 'Peewits'!

Later that winter.........
It was again a very cold day, this time there had been some snow fall (yes snow in Cornwall!). My parents (who had some basic knowledge of birds) called me into the garden to show me a small bird skulking under a bush. This bird was a strikingly marked (and coloured) bird, quite stunning. My parents then informed me that it was a Redwing that had come from Russia (!!). I remember being amazed, not just by the striking appearence of this bird, but also by the fact that we had birds visiting our garden from such far flung places!

So I guess it was that winter that I got 'hooked' into birding!

Regards
Tristan
 
Two of the first birds I remember rushing home to look up, also in Cornwall:

I had been sitting on the end of Cape Cornwall, by the Coastguard station, looking out to sea through binoculars, when I saw these big white birds with black wing tips crash diving into the sea - very spectacular - my first gannets. Another time, walking back up from the same place, along the road between the fields, I saw a flock of extraordinary black and white birds with long orange bills - back to the field guide to discover they were oystercatchers. They probably rank with herons as what Bill Oddy once called "dudes' delights" but both birds still give great pleasure.

Paul
 
when i was a wee lad growing up in newcastle we used to have kestrels that hunted on and around the school grounds (right on walker riverside park). they were different from other birds because they 'hovered', that made me curious, and after a while other birds became interesting to me, so after a few bird books etc i learnt more and more about our feathered friends and have never looked back really. i still have a soft spot for kestrels though, and visit my old stomping area regulary to keep check on whats been going on.
 
Last edited:
For me its a dead heat between Stonechat and Reed Bunting. I saw a male of each beside each other as an 8 year old and decided I'd look them up.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 16 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

M
Bird You Have Taken for Granted
Replies
15
Views
1K
maplekong
M
martinboer
Martin's 2024 Bird List (Chevy Chase, MD, USA)
2
Replies
24
Views
1K
martinboer
martinboer
bonxie birder
When and why did we start birding?
2
Replies
26
Views
2K
Andy Strachan
Andy Strachan
MohoNobilis
Disappointment and Chaos - Back In Hong Kong
Replies
3
Views
769
delia todd
delia todd
JoeGBirder
Best birding trip you ever went on
Replies
14
Views
2K
Lerxst
Lerxst

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top