We have two beginning birders in our family. I would love to share some of the things we have been doing to train these avid young birders.
We just got back last night from the Georgia Youth Birding Competition where they and their two teammates won their age group (Pre-Elementary) for # of species. I hope to post an update later today about which species they identified. Amazingly, this team of one Kindergartner, one first grader, and two second graders identified 82 species in a 24 hour period this weekend. You may remember hearing about our team Birds of a Feather last year, as they were the team that spotted the Yellow Headed Blackbird, a rare migrant, at E L Huie.
I say they are beginners because they are just 6 and 8 years old….though they and their two teammates (same ages) have been birding for about two years now. Here are some of the things we have done to train our young birders.
First of all, when they were just 4 and 6 years old, we had to spend a lot of time working on how to use binoculars. My friend and I hid Easter Eggs around the yard, and had the 4 boys each practice finding an egg in their binocs. They had to learn how to describe where the eggs were located to their teammate, the teammate had to then locate the egg and tell which color it was. During the competition, adults are not allowed to say “Look over there, see that bird?” so they had to learn how to spot birds on their own, find them in binocs, and describe the location to their friends.
This was a big challenge when they were so little, as they had to learn right from left, and how to communicate location to someone else, how to find something visually with their eyes, then how to find it in their binocs without losing it. It was much easier with eggs than birds, though, because eggs don’t move. After some practice like this they could begin to spot birds and describe location to one another.
We also found that investing in some decent binoculars was key. Many people don’t want to spend any money on young kids tools, but if the tools aren’t good, they won’t want to stick with it. Think how frustrating it is for you when you have poor binocs. It is even more important for them, as they need all the help they can get! We started them off with Leupold Yosemite 6 x 30 binocs. I wrote Kenn Kaufman personally to get his recommendation, as he works with lots of youth birders. These were great….sturdy, they can take some banging around, low price point (we got ours on Ebay for $65), yet good enough quality to really work for the kids….plus they are very lightweight and they are excellent for children because they can adjust for very close-set eyes.
For our 3 year old, we bought a plastic set of binoculars at a Wild Birds Unlimited store. For about $10 you can get a better set than most of the cheapies sold at Walmart. He is not doing a lot with his binocs, but wants to be like the big boys. Our 3 yo has been accompanying us on most of our birding expeditions for at least a year now. It is a normal part of his life, and he has learned how to be quiet and how to look through his binocs, too. Here is an article about choosing binoculars for kids.
We make lots of use of Identifliers, Les Beletsky’s 250 Birds (with digital audio player of the calls), and Birding by Ear and More Birding by Ear. They listen to the Birding By Ear CDs many nights as they are falling asleep (they LOVE them!) We play games with the Identiflier, playing a call and seeing if they can recognize it. Much of their success with finding 82 birds was done Birding by Ear, by the way. They have memorized well over 100 calls.
The youngest teammember just turned 6 last week, and he successfully competed in the competition last year just days after his 5th birthday. We have found that the BEST thing for these little birders have been the Audubon plush birds. They are like plush stuffed animals that play the bird’s call (calls recorded by Cornell Ornithology Lab). Between the two of them, my boys have probably 100 of these birds. They buy them with their own money, get them for birthdays and Christmas, earn them as rewards, etc.
They know all the markings and calls for every plush bird they own, and play with them as toys all the time. Even my 3 year old owns some (Pileated Woodpecker, Barn Swallow, Killdeer, and a few others) and he can name all of them and recognize most of the calls. We play games with the 6 and 8 yo boys where I hide 15 birds in a pillowcase, at random, and squeeze them (playing the calls) and they have to name the call….then the bird is revealed to see if they got it right. They have learned the calls and field marks of these birds just by playing, which is, in my opinion, the very best way for children to learn.
We also have purchased the North American Birds Notebooking Set.
This set enables the boys to color in a picture of the birds, and has lines where they can write its name, write some notes about it, and even blank maps where they can draw in the range map themselves, allowing them to create their own bird guide. They loved studying the range maps and drawing those in before they could even read or write….in the early days, the range maps and photos were the only part of their guides they could study on their own, so they pored over that information when I wasn’t available to help them with all the words.
As for field guides, we started out with a Stokes beginners guide to Birds of the Eastern Region. This guide is color coded, with a red tab for red birds, a yellow tab for yellow birds, etc. This allowed the boys to see something at the feeder and quickly turn to the right COLOR section to look for it. We also used the free, online guide put out by Cornell, called All About Birds. That site is awesome, as you can both see the birds and hear their calls, learn about their habitat, see range maps, and much more. We still use it when we are at home.
After that, we got Kaufman guides for them, which were easier to use than the Sibley guide intially, as birds are grouped according to common characteristic rather than taxonomically. This was a big advantage for the children, to be able to look up the birds of prey section, or “pigeon like birds” section, etc. There is a pictorial table of contents, with color tabbed sections. The index is easier for a new reader, too, as there is a quick find one-page index in addition to the longer index, and in the quick-find index there is a color tab so they know what section to turn to visually.
This enables them to use the guide fairly easily on their own. They have Sibleys, too, and they have All the Birds, which is K’s favorite guide….but when trying to ID a new bird, they always grab Kaufman first. The boys both won excellent new field guides for kids at the Youth Birding Competition. I know we are going to really enjoy this new Young Birders Guide.
At last year’s competition their team Birds of a Feather won their age group, as well, having identified 52 species in the 24 hour time period. C.A. had just turned 5 that week, and K. was 7. They each received in invaluable prize: Thayer Birding Software for our state. They used that software ALL the time this year to prepare for the competition. I paid an additional fee to upgrade our software to all the birds of North America. We were able to use it last year in Montana, South Carolina and Illinois. This year we’ll be studying birds of Florida before our trip there next month.
They have one other birding computer game which they love to play. It has taught my youngest boys a lot about the habitat of various birds, their field marks and their calls. I had to buy it on Ebay, as it is no longer being produced, but it is worth trying to find The Multimedia Bird Book computer game.
No amount of book learning can take the place of birding in the field, of course. We started with lots of seed and hummingbird feeders in our yard…then we began birding at parks. We go to West Point Lake, EL Huie, Newman Wetlands and other places around Georgia frequently. We have started taking our gear along whenever/wherever we go for vacation, and have been blessed to spot the Painted Bunting in Hilton Head, the Indigo Bunting in Illinois, more Yellow-headed Blackbirds in Montana, and lots of Sandhill Cranes in Florida.
We have been blessed by mentoring opportunities, as well. Last year Stephen Johnson from West Point helped us out a lot as we were getting started, and that was very valuable for the boys. My 8 yo son K. and I had the opportunity to spend a day birding with Paul Miliotis this year, and the knowledge he passed on in that one day will stick with us for a lifetime. Mr. Miliotis was in the New York Times, Time Magazine and other prestitious publications in the 1970s for being one of two Americans to spot the Ross’ Gull in the continental U.S. If you aren’t a birder, you don’t know what that means….but this has become known as “the birding event of the century”.
If any of you experienced birders have an opportunity to mentor young birders, even if it is just once or twice, it makes such a difference. I know less about birds than my 8 year old does, so there is only so much I can do to facilitate his training. He quickly surpassed me, and now most of what I can do is get him great tools and give him opportunities to use them. Having mentors who are willing to go out in the field with us from time to time, pointing out birds, teaching about habitat, etc. is invaluable.
The boys both won spotting scopes in the competition. Because we spent a day using scopes with Mr. Miliotis we have a good idea of how to use this valuable tool, how it works, which habitat it is good for, etc.. Without that mentoring day, the learning curve would have been much steeper. Another kind man was willing to share some new techniques with us, which will enable the boys to fashion a very visible and easy to use sight onto their scopes, using cable ties. This will also greatly reduce the learning curve, enabling the boys to use the scopes as easily as a pair of binoculars.
These are just a few of the many ways we have been helping our young birders grow in their knowledge of birding. The more they learn, the more they enjoy their birding experiences…the more they want to learn…it is a wonderful cycle. They have already far surpassed mommy in her knowledge of birds, but I love accompanying them and enjoying these experiences together. These youth birders have really passed their love of birding on to the whole family, parents and siblings alike, and it has become an enriching pass-time for the whole family.
I hope this information is helpful to some of you looking to develop a love of birding in your children or grandchildren!!
