Birding Basics: Tips, Tools & Techniques for Great Bird-Watching by Noah Strycker. 5 stars. 256 pages, pub. 2022

Targeted to beginners and beyond, National Geographic’s fun, inspiring guide to the art, craft, and science of bird-watching combines practical know-how and expert knowledge. Browsable and bursting with helpful illustrations and photographs, Birding Basics offers new ideas for when, where, and how to get to know the birds in your world.

Not a field guide but a primer in best practices, authored by birding expert Noah Strycker, this breezy book features easy-to-follow advice on what to look and listen for, how to use field guides and birding apps, the best equipment to start with, and ways to engage with other birders around the world. Filled with fun facts and seasoned advice, this useful book will help you attract birds to your backyard, master bird identification, name a bird by its song, and witness the magic of migration. Sidebars feature fun facts, identification tips, and easy projects for exploring the world on the wing. from Goodreads

Gage and I have become a little obsessed with our backyard birds in the last few years and this book is going to help us take it to the next level. This book is full of gorgeous photos and information to turn you from a bird-watcher to a birder or bird nerd. It recommends field guides and how to use them. I’ve already downloaded the two recommended apps (Merlin & eBird) and have several websites marked to visit. The middle section where it talks about how to track and identify the birds you see was so helpful.

Even though there are over 10,000 species of birds, only around 700 are found in North America. Gage and I have been using a midwest bird guide for our backyard birds, but we’ll definitely talk about the different ways to track what we see and buy a more comprehensive guide for when we travel. I’m excited to make this part of our homeschool curriculum.

A few quick tips: when birding don’t point and don’t wear white. If you want to keep the squirrels out of your feeder sprinkle the food with chili powder. Birds don’t taste the spice, but the squirrels do.

I can’t recommend this enough for bird enthusiasts.

I want to thank TLC Book Tours for inviting me to be part of the book tour and sending me a copy of the book!