From the Spring 2024 subject of Residing Chicken journal. Subscribe now.

Birding throughout migration means ample op­portunities to rack up lifers; add to county, state, and patch lists; rating the earliest or newest arrivals of species; and clock in report excessive counts.

There are countless strategies for locating birds that include years of expertise and experimentation. I’ve used a couple of favourite methods to assist me discover 185 species, together with rarities like Painted Bunting and Connecticut Warbler, in Brooklyn Bridge Park—a slim, 1.3-mile stretch of city waterfront in New York Metropolis that draws almost 5 million human guests annually.

By various the way in which you scan for birds and strategize for birding, you’ll rating lifers and rarities and acquire a front-row seat to the spectacle of migration. Add in a bit tech assist from eBird and the Merlin Chicken ID app, and also you’ll take your birding enjoyment to a brand new degree.

1. Systematically scan open areas and edges

Birds are nice at hiding in plain sight. Anytime you stumble upon an open area like a area, garden, seaside, water physique, or muddy space, do a scientific test. First, examine all perches across the perimeter together with treetops, snags, posts, and cables. Subsequent, scan the place the open area meets dense habitats akin to reeds, shrubs, woodland, rocks, and many others. It is a nice technique to discover birds like bitterns and rails alongside marsh edges or sparrows and wrens edging out from meadow shrubs and scrubby seaside dunes.

Now that you just’ve coated the perime­ter, fastidiously test the open space itself. Scan in an “S” sample, transferring left to proper in a row, then proper to left within the subsequent row, and so forth. As you do that, a area may come alive with a flock of Horned Larks, or your eyes may land on a Snowy Plover on the seaside. I recall scanning the mudflats of a giant Arizona wetland for no less than 10 minutes earlier than scoring a lifer; not one however three Amer­ican Pipits have been foraging in plain sight.

2. Eke birds out of the sky

Spring and autumn are nice occasions to look excessive within the sky for migrating birds, whether or not they be hawks, kites, and eagles hovering at higher elevations, or giant clouds of blackbirds within the distance. And the perfect half is that your binoculars will can help you decide a few of these migrants out of skinny air.

Begin by selecting a distant reference level, like a tree line, row of buildings, snag, or gentle submit—even a transferring object like a aircraft. Focus your binoculars on the item, then look past it for birds in flight. By utilizing this distant-object focus-and-scan approach, raptors and flocks come out and in of view shortly. It’s a bit bit like taking a look at stars within the evening via binoculars; when you give attention to one star, entire different constellations seem that weren’t seen to the bare eye. However on this case, you’ll uncover birds that have been flying unseen at excessive altitudes.

You may discover a teetering V-shape within the distance (Turkey Vulture), a hovering Broad-winged Hawk or Golden Eagle, or Sandhill Cranes flying in for­mation. Birds flying within the distance additionally make nice reference objects themselves; I as soon as noticed a Mississippi Kite hovering far behind a pair of Black Vultures I used to be observing from a Florida car parking zone.

Sure occasions and climate circumstances are higher for locating high-flyers. When it’s windy, raptors are attainable via­out the day; on heat windless days, the afternoon is extra productive as raptors journey the rising thermal currents. Use the springtime’s southerly winds as a cue to search for migrating waterfowl that journey the air currents northward (and the identical with northerly winds in autumn). Raptor and waterfowl migration begins in March and might be at its greatest via mid-April.

3. Sit down

To migrating songbirds, we people are ominous giants. No marvel they run and conceal once we method.

We seem a lot much less threatening when seated, which may usually lead to birds—particularly skulking, ground-dwelling species—that edge out from dense cowl and into view. Subsequent time you see a chook abscond into low and dense vegetation, sit down close by on a stone, bench, and even higher, proper on the bottom. The chook will seemingly reappear inside a couple of minutes to forage out within the open, together with others not seen earlier than.

Floor-level birding is a good way to relocate unidentified birds alongside a path or garden edge, akin to sparrows, wrens, and sure warblers that run into the comb or flit additional into dense vegetation. Sit down to attend for a bit, and species like Lincoln’s Sparrow, Marsh Wren, or your most sought-after skulker could reappear and provide you with nice views.

Some birds could even begin to method you should you occur to be seated alongside the trail of their foraging; I as soon as had a Golden-crowned Kinglet hop onto my knee because it was feasting on gnats buzzing up from a park garden in New York Metropolis.

4. Apply monitoring birds in flight with widespread birds

A number of the most sought-after migratory birds are species which can be continuously on the transfer, flitting and zipping out and in of view, like Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Blackburnian Warblers. You’ll be able to enhance your probabilities of species ID at a glimpse by enhancing your expertise at figuring out birds in flight.

Advantageous-tune this ability by practising on the widespread birds round you that you just see on a regular basis. I usually use Home Sparrows as my topics; the smaller the higher for the reason that final purpose is to trace warblers. Begin by dialing within the focus in your binoculars to roughly the vary the place your birds might be, so you possibly can shortly alter focus when a chook comes into view. Then interact your peripheral imaginative and prescient to detect birds flying round you. While you see one, lock your eyes on it as you increase your binoculars, and maintain your eyes on the chook till it lands or disappears out of sight.

With a bit apply, you’ll be shortly and comfortably locking give attention to birds in flight, and capable of pinpoint the place a chook lands to attempt to get a greater look. Birds can even appear to decelerate for you, making it simpler to detect extra of their figuring out options. I discover specializing in a chook’s head to be most useful for IDing species on the wing. Be aware issues like invoice form, the presence of an eyering or eye stripe, and contrasting throat colour. As soon as the face turns into straightforward to establish in flight, search for different figuring out traits like tail size and flight type.

5. Scan eBird bar charts to see who may be within the neighborhood

Among the finest methods to seek out extra birds is to know what to anticipate and the place. eBird’s weekly bar charts are my favourite useful resource throughout migration to see which species are more likely to be on the town and which of them may be coming subsequent.

Go to eBird Discover and enter your county, then choose Bar Charts (or “Area navigation” in your cellphone display screen to broaden the menu choices). At a look, you’ll see which species are anticipated to reach first throughout migration, akin to blackbirds, and the way lengthy they are often anticipated to remain. You’ll discover peaks in lots of birds’ frequency throughout migration months, and which weeks provide the perfect probabilities so as to add them to your record.

For individuals who wish to break a report of their native birding scene, eBird bar charts are a good way to attempt for the ear­liest or newest report of a species in an space. Be aware the week earlier than or after the related information block and spend extra effort and time in a chook’s habitat throughout these weeks. Bar charts additionally illuminate alternatives for species excessive counts; search for chart peaks of flocking species akin to blackbirds to know the perfect occasions to scan the sky.

6. Goal the birds you want

In the event you’re trying so as to add extra birds to your life, state, or county record, focus your efforts on the species you’re lacking with eBird Targets. Simply go to the positioning, enter your space of curiosity, alter the “Time of yr,” and click on “Present goal species.” An inventory of species you want for a specific area seems together with their frequency percentages; you possibly can search targets on your county, state, nation, or world life record.

7. Let Merlin hear for you

The Merlin Chicken ID app’s Sound ID function listens for birds and reveals species identification ideas for the sounds it detects. It usually picks up sounds that folks don’t discover, akin to distant birdsong or calls obscured by ambient noise. It additionally simply detects the high-pitched sounds of birds like Black­ballot Warblers and Cedar Waxwings that may be too excessive for some individuals to listen to. I usually let Merlin take heed to canvass the sounds of an space, particularly in spring and summer season. If it suggests a rarity or chook I’m hoping so as to add to an inventory, I do know to focus my efforts on that species’ most popular habitat.

8. At all times be birding

One tried-and-true technique of seeing extra birds is to broaden your definition of birding. Heading to the grocery retailer? Take a fast minute to analyze that tiny chook atop a tree within the retailer’s exte­rior landscaping. Taking the youngsters to the playground? Steal a couple of seconds to scan shrubs past the swing set for spar­rows and warblers. Going to a baseball recreation at evening? In between innings, scan the world in entrance of the floodlights to see if any nightjars are out hawking bugs.

Deal with each outing as a bird-finding alternative. Pack your bin­oculars or maintain a spare set in your automotive, purse, or backpack so that you don’t miss a chook. At all times be tuned in to motion and sounds, in addition to potential perches and different surrounding habitats.

Even the smallest patches of appropriate habitat can appeal to birds everybody needs to seek out. One spring, I went to my broth­er’s place in Brooklyn to have dinner on the terrace and packed my binoculars simply in case. Because the solar began to set, I observed motion on a close-by rooftop in a planter holding a 2-foot pine. Once I appeared via the lenses, I couldn’t imagine what I had discovered: a migrating Pine Warbler in a tiny pine tree!

There are seemingly pockets of chook habitat in all places in your day-to-day comings and goings—retailer and workplace parking tons, for instance, are sometimes bordered by mini marshes, wetlands, or woodlands. Take it from me, if there’s one factor I’ve realized as I method the 200-species mark in my birding patch beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, it’s that extra species await in probably the most unlikely locations. There may be all the time one other chook to seek out.

Concerning the Creator

Heather Wolf is the creator of Discover Extra Birds and Birding on the Bridge. A Brooklyn-based birder, photographer, and educator, she works with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online developer, teaches birding courses at Brooklyn Botanic Backyard, and offers walks and talks for varied organizations in New York Metropolis and past.

In her new guide, Discover Extra Birds: 111 Stunning Methods to Spot Birds Wherever You Are (The Experiment, 2023), Heather Wolf shares her best ways for sharpening a birder’s senses and turning into extra conscious of the birds which can be out and about every single day. Be taught extra and purchase the guide.