Birdwatching, or birding as it now commonly called, is practiced by more than 60 million North Americans. There are more than 900 species that are permanent or summer residents or visit regularly.

Allan and I discovered the joy of birding in 2005 when we went to Hawk Cliff for the fall migration. We enjoyed the experience so much that it only seemed natural to get a feeder for the backyard which of course led to several!!

Although we have spent some wonderful hours with our backyard birds, when we heard about a hiking trail at The Royal Botanical Gardens where chickadees would land on your hand if you had some seed for them we knew we'd be hooked!!

Putting these pages together has been a lot of fun and very educating too! I've collected information about the various birds from our books as well as surfing the internet. I have learnred many interesting facts about the birds we enjoy watching. I think the coolest (and valuable to me) fact has been about storms and one particular bird. Since I am terrified of storms you can be sure I'll be putting that little tidbit of info to the test this year!!! Through these pages I hope to share some favourite photos I have taken and a little bit about each type of bird. I hope you enjoy your visit!!

Backyard Birding Tips For Beginners

• A Good Field Guide:Look for clear photos, a description of the bird it's habitat and what food it eats.
• Food and Water:Sounds obvious but many people feed birds during the nice weather and forget that food is scarce in winter. Feed all year long. Black-oil sunflower seed probably attracts the greatest amount of birds, we also add peanuts, both shelled and unshelled, and sometimes a mix of various seeds.
• Camera:Be prepared to take lots of photos and end up keeping only a few!!
• Binoculars:We live in the city and binoculars are great for seeing the bird that refuses to come to our yard but loves the tree 3 houses down!!
• Patience:Unfortunately birds don't appear at our convenience. They don't understand or care that you forgot the camera in the house...they are NOT going to wait until you get back. I spend as much time as I can on my patio so the birds get used to seeing me and are a bit more tolerant of my lifting the camera. I'm also learning what time of day different birds put in an appearance. If there is food, sparrows and morning doves show up all day while cardinals and blue jays seem to favour early morning and evening.