Today we are diving into my special interest - birds. For years now, people have been asking for advice on getting into birdwatching. I’ve hesitated to answer, simply because my own process of stumbling around slowly learning more about birds through open-ended exploration has been so gratifying and illuminating for me, and boiling that down into a checklist and a shopping list felt like taking away the magic. But today I’m taking my sweet time to share all the nuances of my birding journey, my birding philosophy, my birding gear, and answering questions from y’all on how to get started (and how to enjoy it)!
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:45 Why I’ve historically avoided answering the question “how do I get into birding?”
00:07:27 My journey of birdwatching
00:24:56 Learning to birdwatch is essentially learning how to see.
00:35:55 Why should people care about birding?
00:49:20 Q&A starts
00:49:45 How do I get started? What gear do I need? Where do I go?
01:05:55 How do I identify birds?
01:11:27 How do I continue enjoying birding and avoid a completionist mindset?
01:17:40 My most exciting birding experience.
01:20:55 My most unexpected birding experience.
01:25:17 Do I have a spark bird?
01:28:13 Do I relate birding to revolutionary thinking?
Resources:
What’s That Bird Facebook group
A couple other things I’ve written about birds:
What the nesting birds teach me about revolution
This spring, a familiar pair of Bewick’s Wrens took up residence in the rafters of my back porch.
Practicing Joy
One day shortly after I got into birdwatching, I called my dad and rapturously told him about this walk I took by the river, and the throngs of cliff swallows I had seen swooping in and out of spherical mud nests they’d built under the bridges. There were dozens of them, white bellies gleaming in the golden hour sun, diving over the water to catch bugs,…
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