Birding / Nature Watching

Hi all,

Is anyone else a birder? I’m getting amped up for spring migration, and was hoping some other people were as well! My most recent lifer was a Hoary Redpoll during this winter’s huge irruption.

Also, just nature in general! Anyone use iNaturalist? It identifies and records nature observations for you (it’s like PokemonGO but with real species). I really like lichens, mosses, and birches. I also routinely sort through amphibian and reptile observations to identify them for people

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I do a bit of nature photography in my spare time. Probably one of my favourite sights was this female Sparrowhawk visiting my garden.

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I bet that there’s a pretty significant overlap between Pokemon card collectors and people interested in wildlife. After all, Pokemon are basically imaginary wildlife. The drive to study/collect nature is probably similar to the drive to study/collect Pokemon. I used to have a freshwater fish tank full of a diverse array of colorful fish. Having as many different species of fish in that tank as possible was satisfying to me. Whenever at the pet store, I would try to buy a new fish specimen of a species that I didn’t yet have in the tank. The impulse to sort, identify, and study wildlife is very similar to what drives Pokemon card collectors, IMO.

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Graduating with Outdoor Adventure Leadership degree, looking to lead wilderness vision fasts, and my birth name is Cedar (like the tree). Naturalist would be an understatement XD

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Totally agree. After all, it was the collecting of bugs as a child that inspired the idea of Pokemon!

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Crazy nice pic! I’m no photographer, I just avidly bird and try to add to to my life list (I’m at 337 species of bird so far!)

I’m not a huge fan of raptors, I’m more of a Passeriformes (the perching birds) type of guy. North and South America have incredible warblers, here’s a crappy photo of one of my favorites, Chestnut-sided Warbler

I’d love if more people started posting some of their nature sightings here! I agree that Pokemon and nature go hand-in-hand.

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Been a hiker/camper for over 10 years and have definitely picked up a few things. I still have bug books from my childhood and like to identify different kinds of clouds since it was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. I also will often take pictures of wildlife, plants, bugs, to identify later and keep a nature journal with me at all times. I love identifying birds as well but don’t keep up an active memory. Though my most exciting find was a small flock of Prothonotary Warblers last year.

As much as I love certain Pokemon including Gyarados, my favorite type are Bug Pokemon since I’ve always loved collecting live bugs which I would identify and then release later. Over the last few years, I’ve thought of potentially doing a bug collection as I love Museum displays of them and it’d give me more reason to stay curious about life.

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Add them to iNaturalist! It adds the sighting to a massive database of biodiversity and nature sightings, and people will help to ID it if you’re unsure.

One of my coworkers is doing a bee survey and pins 10k+ bees a year for the collection, it’s so neat to see. I’d love to do that with local dragonflies or moths/butterflies one day.

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Avian Dinosaurs are cool to watch, I def wish I did it more. I used to go with my friend who was knowledgable in biological species.

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I’m really enjoying this thread. Keep it going.
Having lived in deserts over 25 years I’ve learned to enjoy different species of life.

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Over where I live we have a national bird watching day where interested parties can participate and report each species they discover in their neighborhood/garden on this specific day. Since there are a lot of participants, the results are usually very conclusive nationwide - it helps finding and protecting endangered species early and see if certain species changed their habits/location over the years.

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My least favourite bird is the Cassowary, one of the only animals I am afraid of when I see them in person.

They have evil eyes and huge clawed feet, one of them killed a kid a couple of years ago.

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@tolan, that’s a great idea! Thank you for that resource. I help identify bugs for certain facebook, friend, and the occasional reddit groups so this is right up my alley!

Bah, that’s awesome. If I got hired to collect bugs for a living and identify them and survey them, I think I’d be golden. Though, this gives me hope for a potential summer job opportunity. So thanks for the idea!

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Does anyone have bird feeders out? I have a resident Carolina Wren that has been loving my compost pile and suet.

www.npr.org/2021/12/21/1066201821

This is a crazy bird story, I’m eager to see where it’ll pop up next!