Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Birding online

Along with all the other bird-related things I do (birding, writing these posts, drawing birds, etc.), I go online often. Here's a couple places I like to visit.

I like listening to bird podcasts. It's kinda relaxing, you get to hear funny stories, and you find out what's going on in the world. My favorite podcasts series is Ray Brown's Talkin' Birds. Some others include This Birding Life (Bill Thompson, III) and the Author's Spotlight (Julie Zickefoose).

Along with writing blog posts, I also enjoy reading others' articles on birding and about new additions to peoples' life list. My favorite blogs are Julie Zickefoose on Blogspot (Julie Zickefoose), Bill of the Birds (Bill Thompson III), the Stokes Birding Blog (Don and Lilian Stokes), and the Science of Birds (Nick Minor). You get to see cool things like a red bat or a squeaking caterpillar (both featured on Julie Zickefoose's blog). You'll learn about migrants coming through the area or cool facts about bird biology and whatnot. Plus, there's a lot of cool pictures to look at. (Who doesn't like pictures?)

eBird and BirdCast are two tools used by a lot of tech-savvy birders. Birdcast is used to forecast bird migration and movements, and eBird is used also to report on bird trends, sort of like BirdCast, but instead of showing a map of the continent, it has graphs and charts and stuff like that. I really enjoy looking at it.

Bird Watcher's Digest is another fun thing to check out - it's a bimonthly magazine that talks about birds, and only birds. And it's super thick. The best thing about it is that it always comes early. Check it out!