It sounds simple, doesn’t it? You know how to count, so just … well … count them! But as I’m sure any birder—new or experienced—knows, counting birds can be deceptively hard. Not only might you encounter birds in large numbers that may feel overwhelming to parse, but the conditions that you’re viewing birds in are always changing.

With practice and the help of some useful estimation methods, counting birds gets easier in time. This week’s Entryway to Birding blog brings you some tips and advice for navigating some of those more challenging, less straightforward counting situations, so you can spend more time enjoying the birds and less time stressing about getting “exact” counts for your checklist.

Photo by Caitlyn Schuchhardt

We’re moving into September and fall migration continues to pick up. Unlike spring migration, which sometimes feels like it’s gone in a flash, fall migration is more of a slow burn—which is good news for you and me! It means we have more time to enjoy and seek out the wide variety of migrating birds that are passing through on their long, arduous journey south for the winter.

This past week has seen a surge in passerine migration—songbirds like thrushes, vireos, flycatchers, and, oh yes, warblers are all here and fueling up for their migration south.

Warblers. A fan favorite. They’re fast. They’re small. They’re infuriatingly high up in the trees and obscured by leaves. But oh, we love them so.

If you’re a new birder, you’ve maybe heard tell that fall warblers are “confusing.” Why is that? How are they different from spring warblers? What is it that you’re up against? This week’s Entryway to Birding blog brings you a guide to finding and identifying fall warblers with confidence.

Have you ever seen a new bird species so mesmerizing, so fascinating, so attention-catching and stood stunned, wondering how on earth you hadn’t noticed it before? I’ve had many of these moments in my first year as a new birder—the most recent happening just last week!

I was out for a summer evening walk with a friend when something that I didn’t recognize flew overhead. Another bird followed. And then another.

They were fast. Erratic. And moving quickly out of sight. A brief glimpse with my binoculars got my adrenaline pumping, because I saw what I was sure were two bright white wing patches—one near the end of each wing. I high-tailed it back down the trail, hoping to get a better look at them when they emerged from behind some trees.

Sure enough. My first common nighthawks of the summer, and my first ever.

Late August and early September brings us a lot of special birding events, common nighthawk migration included. This week’s Entryway to Birding blog takes a closer look at what you might find when you turn your eye to the summer evening sky, and shares a few resources that you should know about if you’d like to get a better sense of the season’s timings.

Photo by Kenneth Cole Schneider

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I would soon be approaching my “bird-iversary”—the anniversary of the day that I became a birder! And guess what? That day is today! Yep, I can 100% trace my birding journey back to a single bird walk I took on August 24, 2019—one year ago today.

As I look back on my first year of birding, I’ve realized how much my life has changed—in big ways, small ways, and sometimes imperceptible ways, but all positive ways. It’s really brought home that birding isn’t just about the birds. It’s a hobby that will ripple through your life, leaving little waves of wonder in its wake.

This week’s blog reflects on some of the ways that birding can change your world. If you’ve been thinking about a good time to start this hobby, I can guarantee that today is a good day to start.

Photo by Caitlyn Schuchhardt

If you’ve started birding during the pandemic, you’ve probably been going it solo—without the company of fellow birders on a group walk or field trip. Thankfully birding is perfectly suited for this! You can social distance, explore nature at your own pace, and enjoy the meditative benefits that come with the hobby. But at some point, you’ll likely find yourself interacting with the larger birding community—whether locally or online—and you might find that you’ve been missing out on some birder-to-birder socialization.

Birding, like all hobbies, comes with its own culture. Learning the language that some birders use in the field can help you discover more about the hobby and how to participate in it responsibly, but also help you have more fun and connect with other birders over shared experiences.

This week’s Entryway to Birding blog brings some context to some of the stranger terms you might hear in the field. So if you’ve been wondering what it means to “dip” on the sighting of a “vagrant” bird, read on! This week is for you.

Photo by Caitlyn Schuchhardt