Date: 12 to 15 May 2011
Venue: Fridley’s Springbrook Nature Center
City: Fridley
State: Minnesota
Country: United States of America

Related posts:

1. 2011 San Diego Bird Festival/Audubon California Assembly
2. Godwit Days Spring Migration Bird Festival 2011
3. Everglades Birding Festival 2011

To begin bird watching it is important to have a reliable bird watching guide. Bird watching guides are generally region or country specific, so ensure you have the appropriate book for your area. To assist you in spotting the many varieties of birds, a pair of bird watching binoculars is useful. These range greatly in price and quality. Look around to find a pair of birding binoculars to suit your needs and your pocket. A step up from binoculars is bird watching scopes and bird watching telescopes. Spotting scopes and telescopes enable you to see birds over a greater distance and with greater clarity.

Bird watching can be done anywhere, from your back garden to the local park and various other natural areas. There are many places to choose from to go on bird watching holidays. Many birders start a bird checklist and tick off the birds (especially rare birds) that they see. They go on bird watching holidays in other countries to mark off more species. Why not start your own checklist! Remember to have your bird watching guide handy so that you can identify the new species more easily.

When identifying birds, it is important to consider the following: coloration, the general shape of the bird, the beak, the legs and feet, the way it is behaving, the habitat in which it is living, its call and so forth. All these clues will help you in identifying the bird accurately. Your bird watching scope will come in handy in finding out the finer details.

To find out more about bird watching why not visit a book store to see which bird watching magazines they have available. Bird watching magazines will provide information on birds, products, etc in your region.

Your skills as a birder will improve the more you practice. Soon enough you will be identifying your local birds without any difficulty.

Related posts:

1. Bird Watching: Know Your Binoculars!
2. Exquisite Bird Watching in Turkey
3. British Bird Fair 2010

Have you ever wondered how different birds adapt to changes urban growth and other changes in their environments? A team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Arizona State University did. So they set about finding out the answer to the question and have discovered some interesting results.

As part of efforts to develop effective conservation strategies for plants and animals, a team of researchers has set about trying to study the effects that fast-growing urban areas have on various bird species. The surprising results suggest that while some species thrive in urban environments, others prefer to stay far away from them, while still others can live quite comfortably in both environments. The idea of the study was to determine how animals and plants are able to adapt to the ever-changing landscapes that surround them.

It is already a long-acknowledged fact that urbanization has a large impact on native animal species as it destroys their natural habitat and changes how they interact with other species. However, little is known about how well they actually adapt to their change in environment and so the university team set about trying to determine just how well, or how poorly, various bird species adapted to the change. Using bird count data that was taken during the course of a two-year period in Phoenix, Arizona, the team used computer models developed for mineral mapping to create an analytical database that revealed some very notable trends in the distribution of different bird species in the Phoenix area. They focused mainly on the rock dove or pigeon, the cactus wren and the phainopepla.

You don’t have to be particularly knowledgeable to accurately guess that the pigeons showed a definite preference for urban areas. However, they were not particularly fond of outlying desert and agricultural regions. In stark contrast, the phainopepla was found mainly in deserted areas. This crested bird’s native environment is the desert and dry woodland areas and it feeds on mistletoe berries and insects. However, as urbanization increased, the phainopepla decreased. In fact, studies showed that this species was unable to live in urban areas successfully. Thus the bird is very sensitive to loss of habitat and this is one of the main reasons behind their sharp and perilous decline in numbers in recent years. The cactus wren, on the other hand, showed an ability to live both in rural and urban areas. While it is usually associated with deserts, it is able to nest on satellite dishes and other artificial structures and so it adapts to the changing environment.

The computer models were a very helpful tool in the study as they filled in the gaps and helped the researchers to predict where the birds would be more likely to be found in urban areas. Since these urban environments are very different from a bird’s natural habitat, it is often difficult to predict what sort of items they might use to try and survive successfully. This was where the computer models provided the most assistance. The results will likely go a long way to furthering urban ecology research.

Related posts:

1. Personality is Vital for Male Birds
2. Birds Say No Thank You to Organic Wheat
3. Foraging Birds Keep Guard

Even in the densest cities, you can usually find starlings, house sparrows, crows, pigeons or mynas. They feed in city parks and sidewalks. They build nests on houses, skyscraper window ledges, or in street-side trees. Also look for swallows and swifts flying high above the traffic.

There are even birds-of-prey living in the densest cities. For instance, Peregrine Falcons find skyscraper ledges a good substitute for the natural cliffs they normally nest on. And city pigeons are their easy prey.

City parks are good places to start your search for urban birds. You’ll find all the regular city birds, plus migrating forest birds may stop by for a visit, or migrating ducks may enjoy parks’ lakes.

Look at New York City for proof that city-birding can be excellent. New York City’s Central Park is surrounded by miles concrete and urban sprawl. 25 million humans visit the park each year. But so do an astounding 281 species of birds!

Dozens of bird species make Central Park their year-round home. And during spring and fall migrations, birding here gets truly exciting. Wild birds move through Central Park by the thousands, making it one of the top 100 bird-watching sites in North America.

Related posts:

1. Birds Down Under 2010
2. The Effect of Urban Growth on Birds
3. LAPC Young Bird Show 2010