Looking Ahead to the New Birding Year.

Yes, the year isn’t over yet and now is the time to view all the Raptors and Owls that come to the area for the winter, not to forget about all the waterfowl that floods the local area. But as enthusiastic birders we are always planning our next trip in our off time and if your planning to accomplish a Big Year you would most likely have your next year already planned. So now let’s discuss some key topics for planning your birding activities for the next year.

The first thing to learn is where will the birds be and when will they be there. There can be many reasons for why birds are where the are, and learning about habitats and migration patterns is a must to being a good birder and planning. Do not get trapped in being just a local birder and waiting for rarities to show up in your back yard, if there is a bird that you want to see you can go to where the bird is located. This could mean birding your entire state, birding areas in several states or become an international birder, which ever suits your style and budget. The great benefit of having birding as a hobby is that there is always something to see and somewhere to visit. While learning about migration patterns and locations you will also become familiar with the different species of birds that follow the migration patterns and the ones that are permanent residents.

Once you are familiar with birds and locations you can choose which birds you are most interested in and where you could go to see and appreciate them. After the first step of doing research on birds and their migratory patterns, you may have a list of locations that you will want to target. At this point we usually contact the locally Audubon Society to ask for more information and to verify what we have researched and interpreted to verify its accuracy. This step has been vital to us because we get responses from people who share our passion for birding and have recent first hand knowledge. We have found that this information is far more useful and accurate than only using internet searches and reading books. Another resource that we like to use is Ebird data . If you are a more visual person you may enjoy the various ways to visualize bird sighting data on the Ebird website. After you have talked with someone from the Audubon Society that resides in the location you are planning to visit, you will have more assurance about the dates and locations for your trip. The only thing that is left is to book your trip and make the appropriate arrangements.

We are currenlty planning trips for spring migration and the festivals we would like to attend. There are several festivals to choose from that occur during the months of spring migration. To view a list of these Bird festivals that occur in Washington State click here. For spring festivals the Grays Harbor Shorebird Festival is our current favorite. It is ranked high on our list due to the enormous amount of birds and the variety of shorebirds that can be seen in multiple locations during the festival. For more information about this festival read you can read about our experiences at last years’ event by clicking here. However, for this year we plan on venturing outside of the Pacific Northwest to view a different variety of birds. The two finalist for spring migration are: Corpus Christi, TX and the country of Belize in Central America. We hope that is article gave you more tools, insights, and ideas to help in planning a successful birding trip for the new year. Happy Birding!