Seeking a birding adventure?

Northern flicker

If you love bird watching like I do but are inexperienced where do you go?  I started out watching hawks at a site near the freeway and a golf course with my daughter.  Birdwatching grew on me slowly  with a primary interest in hawks that began with burning questions about specific types of hawk that I'd seen, one with "owl" eyes, a Northern Harrier female, and the other a huge Goshawk. Both were unique enough in their sighting alone to capture my attention.  Since then  I have discovered  that not all birds are created equal and my fascination only grew. I enjoy every aspect of birding including doing the research to identify different species of birds that I see.  I started going to the local city parks, the creek and the river valley, but after a couple of years that was no longer enough to satisfy me and I realized with a little frustration that maybe I needed to travel, but where too? Since I was still relatively new to bird watching and birding on my own, I had little information to go on.  Then one day a friend of mine mentioned a bird sanctuary not far out of the city and I did some investigating.

Eastern Kingbird

Bird Sanctuaries: The bird sanctuary that my friend was talking about is the Clifford E. Lee Nature Sanctuary located in Alberta,Canada. http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/Hotspots/CliffordLee.htm  . As soon as I learned about it I naturally had to look and see what other such places existed in my area. Travel Alberta is a gold mine of information that helped me find many places where birding was possible just follow this link: http://www1.travelalberta.com/en-ca/index.cfm?pageid=42  If you do a search on google, another veritable font of information, you can find even more, check out this one if you are interested. http://www.kimiwanbirdwalk.ca/  But you don't have to stay in Alberta to go birding, other sites can easily be found in the provinces across Canada.  Check out these sites in Saskatchewan: http://www.econet.sk.ca/sk_enviro_champions/last_mountain_lake.html ,   http://www.birdingpal.org/sask.htm or this one in Ontario which is on or near a migratory route:http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/caontario.htm  If you usually travel by car, or drive these places are easily accessible.

Wild life parks are represent other opportunities prospective birding.  Just follow these two links as examples to check out:  http://gateway.cd.gov.ab.ca/ and http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/world/canada-wildlife.html#cr  These parks are often not all that far away and you can easily just take a weekend or a few days off to get there and enjoy the experience, depending on where you live off course.  Just be sure to follow the park rules and maps of known trails.

Holiday traveling:  Amazingly enough I also discovered to my absolute delight that there are vacation get-aways that can be planned specifically with birding in mind in places all over the world.  To date I have not experienced one of these, but it is definitely amongst my future plans now that I know about them. If you too are interested just follow these links :http://www.naturalist.co.uk/tours2009/venezuela.php,  http://www.birdtreks.com/?gclid=CNuY7ert5J0CFRYhDQod1B3dOw,  http://www.naturetrek.co.uk/wildlife-holidays/wildlife-holidays.asp?ID=19,   http://www.iberianwildlife.com/canary-islands/fuerteventura-trip-report.htm

http://www.hotelmockingbirdhill.com/more-than-the-beach/tag/birding-tours-caribbean/

Downy Woodpecker

Migratory bird watches:  If you don't wish to travel quite that far there are other alternatives in the US and if you are traveling right around the migratory seasons, in the spring or fall, there are specific places you can visit then as well. Migratory season especially is a good time to go bird watching as you are likely to see birds you might otherwise not come across.  Here is a list of just a few such places below, again just follow the links.

 http://www.hawkmountain.org/

http://www.guidedbirdwatching.com/miami.htm

http://www.hallbeach.com/hall-beach-bird-watching-botany.htm

http://grandisle.btnep.org/

As you can see a serious bird watcher will be able to enjoy a birding experience just about anywhere in the world.  Of course there are likely other resources for this type of information.  Try local birding associations or clubs, wildlife associations, or other avid birdwatchers, if you know any.  Most likely any and all of these will be able to help you out.  Good luck and enjoy.

Susan