A Little Primer: Ways to Become a Birder this Winter

I needed to look just one more time. 

“Two more minutes,”  I begged my littles.

“Where is it?”

It was a photo on social media — one of those you know is there but don’t know whether it’s under photos of me, photos by me, or photos on a timeline.

For the time being it looks like it’s gone.  And it would have been perfect!  Perfect for this post. It was me pre-motherhood, in a slim fitting skirt, running from ducks.   

Walking around the pond where my now-husband proposed, I thought feeding ducks and celebrating our “one-month-being-engaged anniversary” would be charming.

But ducks aren’t charming.   They chased me down with my bag of bread and it became fixed in my mind, then and there, that anything with feathers and a beak is not charming.  Over the next six years I never felt otherwise.  Not once.

But oh things change.  And how.  And it’s clear that what happened over those years is an equal combination of two things: children and philosophy — philosophy of education.  After my first was born, I started spending large chunks of time outdoors.  I also started reading more of an educator named Charlotte Mason.  Then … a transformation. A metamorphosis, really.  The feathered creatures I never noticed and frankly never cared about became both noticeable and delightful. Ducks not so much, but songbirds, yes.  Good-tempered chickadees are darling. And tufted titmice and nuthatches are the happiest little companions.

I started hanging attractions out the backdoor once I decided to try “real” birding.  I rolled peanut butter pine cones in fresh millet and painstakingly wired them to birch and serviceberry trees. I offered honey and rye berries with a side of orange slices and toasted bread crumbs.  It was pretty.  But it all looked like it came more from Whole Foods than Menards or Home Depot. Sure enough. Not a single bird.

But this year, though a beginner still, I have birds!  Cardinals, nuthatches, woodpeckers, sparrows, jays, chickadees, titmice, and many still unidentified.  This primer isn’t for the pro birder, obviously, but it may help anyone who’s right where I was last year.  If you’re good at birding, however, drop a comment or recommendation below — for all of us.  Please and thank you!  And for bird haters among you: give a feeder a shot this winter.  Even if you’ve been burned by birds like me.  Your life will become more beautiful.  Promise.  


1.  Start with a clear window bird feeder
My father-in-law introduced me to these and they’re perfect for a beginner.  Not beautiful, but effective!  The feeder attaches easily to a window (with suction cups), and we moved our dining room table directly beneath the window.  My little people can climb up or sit on the table to watch.  It’s amazing; they very literally look our bird visitors in the eye. The feeders are sturdy, cheap, and if you don’t have surrounding foliage, squirrels don’t stand a chance.

2.  Buy bird seed
A no-brainer, I know, but I was too cheap the first few tries ‘round.  And vain. I thought I could use anything I had in the house … and then I wanted it to look pretty and Instagram-like. But it’s bird seed that attracts birds.  Not vanity.

3.  Use a simple bird guide
Don’t get a guide with 18,000 species when you’re just beginning (no joke! Research from the American Museum of Natural History reports 18,000 as the correct number!)  We started with the Peterson First Guide to Birds of North America.  It’s great.  You can get it from the library.  Beautiful images … and we can identify what visits our window in just a few minutes.

4.  Try making cut outs of the birds you identify
If you have small children, there are some fabulous and free bird patterns here — for paper and fabric alike.  A wonderful site!

5.  Savor this book
I’m not trying to encourage anyone to spend money unnecessarily, and I’m not an Amazon affiliate here. But this book is just so good:  Birds Every Child Should Know.  You need it in your life if you want to get to know your birds.  It’s an older book recently republished by the University of Iowa and you may be able to find it at your library.  And just so you can have a preview, a taste of the language and the writing style, I’ll tap out a few selections from the chapter on the chickadee.  Enjoy!  

“ No bird, except the wren, is more cheerful than the chickadee, and his cheerfulness, fortunately, is just as ‘catching’ as measles.  None will respond more promptly to your whistle in imitation of his three very high, clear call notes, and come nearer and nearer to make quite sure you are only a harmless mimic.  He is very inquisitive. Although not a bird may be in sight when you first whistle his call, nine chances out of ten there will be a faint echo from some far distant throat before very long.

Where there is one chickadee there are apt to be more in the neighbourhood; for these sociable, active, cheerful little black-capped fellows in gray like to hunt for their living in loose scattered flocks throughout the fall and winter.  When they come near enough, notice the pale rusty wash on the sides of their under parts which are more truly dirty white than gray. Chickadees are wonderfully tame: except the chipping sparrow, perhaps the tamest birds that we have.

Blessed with a thick coat of fat under his soft, fluffy gray feathers, a hardy constitution and a sunny disposition, what terrors has the winter for him?  When the thermometer goes down, his spirits seem to go up the higher.  Dangling like a circus acrobat on the cone of some tall pine tree; standing on an outstretched twig, then turning over and hanging with his black-capped head downward from the high trapeze; carefully inspecting the rough bark on the twigs for a fat grub or a nest of insect eggs, he is constantly hunting for food and singing grace between bites.  His day, day, day, sung softly over and over again, seems to be his equivalent for ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’

How delightfully he and his busy friends, who are always within call, punctuate the snow-muffled, mid-winter silence with their ringing calls of good cheer.”