Bird Watching Forum

Yeah, I watch lots of birds, both blondes and brunettes.

When you walk, birds get the time to notice you and decide to hide quietly or flee way before you get near. When you run, you can surprise them, especially when they are on the ground (but then, they just vanish in an instant). Apart from that, I don't see what can be gained by combining running with bird watching.

There are incompatibilities:

* for most birds, you need big and heavy binoculars,

* many birds will appear in a clear area and in a good light only after you have spent a lot of time waiting,

* on a spring day, you may stop every minute to try to identify the bird that produced a song, you will not have any time for running.

My idea of bird watching is something akin to ambush hunting, not running.

I wonder how you would go about it.

kinglet wrote:

My idea of bird watching is something akin to ambush hunting, not running.

I wonder how you would go about it.

Run with a shotgun, scare the bird, shoot, watch it.

Running and birding can be fun, just not with binoculars. Almost all are too heavy to carry around on a run. But you can certainly identify songs while running (most birds sing only in spring/summer, and mostly in the morning). The Stokes birdsong CDs are good for this, and there are several decent apps. Or, just go out with some other birders who know their songs and learn from them.

Not nearly as hard to learn songs as most people suspect. Probably about 25 or 30 surefire you'd hear regularly on your running routes.

I've always been something of a hawk/birds-of-prey watcher and that works pretty well with running; they're big enough to see and ID without binocs. I love scaring up an owl or hawk deep in the woods, and I'll often stop to watch them if I see them. Once followed an owl for nearly a mile, as it moved from tree to tree along the trail, and I've had spooked owls take off from tree branches just feet from my head. I'm always the one on our group runs to point out the eagles and hawks sitting in trees as we run underneath.

FFS I got some bins to watch them when out for a walk

I just got interested from what I saw on runs

Mind you the people who carry bottles, phones and all sorts of other crap would probable not notice the extra weight

Check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website:

http://dl.allaboutbirds.org/birdcams-enews-signup?wspapp=67365366304&gclid=CjwKEAjwoPG8BRCSi5uu6d6N5WcSJABHzD8FkMJHFfqOjR5_j4WmaXXABnpegAvgnQkb2k3pLQMWXhoCmuXw_wcB

Lots of good information.

Here in Germany it is a surprisingly young group of people, the majority of them are students.

I once witnessed a tall viking-likeguy jumping up&down like a possessed madman just because in the last light if the day they found that Icelandic minibird-gone-awol to the german north sea coast because of a winter storm. Surreal! :)

Not sure if it's still frowned upon, as my contact was 20 years ago, is "driving by car to spots of reported sightings", all for the sake of the annual and life-list :)

A funny bunch, those birdwatchers.

My kids love the Cornell Ornithology lab's foldout book with different land and seascapes of birds and their sounds.

Purple state of majesty wrote:

Check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website:

http://dl.allaboutbirds.org/birdcams-enews-signup?wspapp=67365366304&gclid=CjwKEAjwoPG8BRCSi5uu6d6N5WcSJABHzD8FkMJHFfqOjR5_j4WmaXXABnpegAvgnQkb2k3pLQMWXhoCmuXw_wcB

Lots of good information.

Thanks I follow that on FB although based in UK so a lot of the breeds not over here

I don't do the extreme birding hours in hides travelling all over for a rare bird etc.

Usually go from work in lunch hour and have seen species like Goldcrest Europ's smallest bird in bushes next to a canal.

I see something interesting every other run or so.

My favorite was while XC-skiing in 10-degree F temps, cracklin' cold, and coming into a clearing where on the other side a Goshawk had just killed a Snowshoe Hare and was pulling meat from it's still-steaming breast. I can still see it's steely glare as he wolfed down the pieces of meat. I was 30m away with 8x50 binos so everything was in vivid detail.

Definitely. Especially raptors in action. This morning I saw an interesting interaction between a young Cooper's Hawk and a pair of crows. They almost seemed to be playing.

I bird watch when I'm hiking and fishing. Very relaxing.

kinglet wrote:

When you walk, birds get the time to notice you and decide to hide quietly or flee way before you get near. When you run, you can surprise them, especially when they are on the ground (but then, they just vanish in an instant). Apart from that, I don't see what can be gained by combining running with bird watching.

There are incompatibilities:

* for most birds, you need big and heavy binoculars,

* many birds will appear in a clear area and in a good light only after you have spent a lot of time waiting,

* on a spring day, you may stop every minute to try to identify the bird that produced a song, you will not have any time for running.

My idea of bird watching is something akin to ambush hunting, not running.

I wonder how you would go about it.

This sounds truly creepy if you think in British english.

Bird502 is a letsrun contributor who is pretty serious about "bird-watching," and posts stunning photos on instagram. He's a 1:03 half marathoner, too. Earlier this year he was posting regularly on the weekly road racing and training thread.

Allen1959 wrote:

Bird502 is a letsrun contributor who is pretty serious about "bird-watching," and posts stunning photos on instagram. He's a 1:03 half marathoner, too. Earlier this year he was posting regularly on the weekly road racing and training thread.

What is his IG name?

Hi, yep I'm into it too. But I mainly watch them from a window, some of them come really close!

YMMV wrote: My favorite was while XC-skiing in 10-degree F temps, cracklin' cold, and coming into a clearing where on the other side a Goshawk had just killed a Snowshoe Hare and was pulling meat from it's still-steaming breast. I can still see it's steely glare as he wolfed down the pieces of meat. I was 30m away with 8x50 binos so everything was in vivid detail.

I too had an enthralling Goshawk flagrante experience as a youth, 65 years ago, but my summit as a running birdwatcher came two or three years ago when I ambushed three Pileated Woodpeckers (males about two feet long with full black red and white plumage) feeding on an ant hill off a dirt road. I could watch them for several minutes from about ten feet away. They seemed completely indifferent to my presence. I could not have gotten a better view in a zoo.