BirdsInTheYard
Member
Hi Everyone --
My name is Tim and I bird mostly in York, PA. Although I have long been fascinated by Red-Tailed Hawks, my real interest in birds only began about 2 years ago when COVID first hit and we were spending a lot more time in our yard, paying attention to the things right around us.
I started keeping a list in my notes app, which I named "Birds In The Yard." I still use that as a running list of everything I have identified both in our yard and beyond. Now, two years in, I am ready to say that my interest in wild birds is real. I took the plunge to buy a camera (Nikon Coolpix P950) so I can start to document the birds I see. And I started trying out checklists on eBird.
We have 3 feeders with different options, 2 baths, and a bunch of different plant options.
In 2021, I counted 45 species from my backyard (a combination of birds actually in the yard and ones passing overhead seen from the yard).
We usually have a pretty steady stream of birds at our feeders. That all changed about 3 weeks ago and I am not entirely sure why. My best guess at the moment is that it might have something to do with the feisty mating pair of Cooper's Hawks with a nest next door and a new favorite feeding parch that looks right down into my yard.
I consider myself a newbie, casual, amateur backyard birder -- but I have started to lightly explore some birding hotspots in the area, too. A pair of binoculars and the Merlin app have been my most-used tools. And I am learning -- slowly, over time -- to relax my ears and my eyes. I am finally getting to the point where I can identify a lot of the common birds around us from a far-away call or a glimpse of them flying. Getting better at what I think of as "rapid, suspected ID" based on a glimpse of a bird in flight has been particularly rewarding -- especially when I am able to verify later.
I'm looking forward to discovering the next stages of my birding adventure.
Tim
My name is Tim and I bird mostly in York, PA. Although I have long been fascinated by Red-Tailed Hawks, my real interest in birds only began about 2 years ago when COVID first hit and we were spending a lot more time in our yard, paying attention to the things right around us.
I started keeping a list in my notes app, which I named "Birds In The Yard." I still use that as a running list of everything I have identified both in our yard and beyond. Now, two years in, I am ready to say that my interest in wild birds is real. I took the plunge to buy a camera (Nikon Coolpix P950) so I can start to document the birds I see. And I started trying out checklists on eBird.
We have 3 feeders with different options, 2 baths, and a bunch of different plant options.
In 2021, I counted 45 species from my backyard (a combination of birds actually in the yard and ones passing overhead seen from the yard).
We usually have a pretty steady stream of birds at our feeders. That all changed about 3 weeks ago and I am not entirely sure why. My best guess at the moment is that it might have something to do with the feisty mating pair of Cooper's Hawks with a nest next door and a new favorite feeding parch that looks right down into my yard.
I consider myself a newbie, casual, amateur backyard birder -- but I have started to lightly explore some birding hotspots in the area, too. A pair of binoculars and the Merlin app have been my most-used tools. And I am learning -- slowly, over time -- to relax my ears and my eyes. I am finally getting to the point where I can identify a lot of the common birds around us from a far-away call or a glimpse of them flying. Getting better at what I think of as "rapid, suspected ID" based on a glimpse of a bird in flight has been particularly rewarding -- especially when I am able to verify later.
I'm looking forward to discovering the next stages of my birding adventure.
Tim
