Birding Without Binoculars

It started when the car that held all my binoculars, scopes and bird books was totaled in an accident. The car was towed to a collision center with all my birding supplies in it. It took me a week to get to it to clear out the car. Two Sundays passed in the meantime. I had a rental car so I could go bird watching. But was it still going to be doable without binoculars? I decided to try. Here's how it worked.

Look for clearly defined birds. If it's too far away to see with the naked eye you can't identify it. But there's plenty of birds in eye view range. Focus on them.

Have a pad of paper. You need to be able to make notes. This works with binoculars, as well. Take a good look. Memorize as many features as you can. Birds move fast. Sometimes the first look is all you'll get. Take notes of the obvious details first. Color, beak length, tail and wings. Then think about markings that jumped out. As you're considering this look back. Birds move fast, but often times they return to where you first spotted them or nearby. You may be lucky to get a second look. That happened to me with a bushtit. I hadn't seen one in a while. It was a delight to see one hopping around under some blackberry vines at the dead end of a road. A second look also occurred with cedar waxwings. I thought I saw the crest but I wasn't sure of colors. The second chance clinched my guess.

As we drove along to the park I didn't feel so limited without binoculars because there were so many birds close up. I noted flocks of various birds hanging out together - something I'd never thought of before. There were some savannah sparrows, barn swallows and tree swallows all on an electrical wire. Goldfinches were hanging out with starlings.

At the park I focused a bit more on the water - water birds are bigger and easier to identify. I found a group of mallards with several young ducks and two females. They sailed off, offended and annoyed. Then I spotted a blue heron standing and staring at the marsh. Beyond him was a kingfisher. As we drove out of the park identifying robins and sparrows and chickadees I noticed a mourning dove. That's not a bird I see much of, though I believe it's common.

In the following week I continued to bird watch as I always do, but without binoculars. I saw killdeer at the YMCA in a flock with sparrows. A red tail hawk perched on a freeway light post was easy to identify. Pigeons near the train tracks on my commute are common.

I finally have my binoculars back and I'm glad. But I discovered they aren't a requirement for bird watching. I guess I should have known. After all, while writing this article I've glimpsed out the window to my feeder and identified a black capped chickadee, a scrub jay, 3 house finches and a savannah sparrow. That's not a bad count for an hour.