Where to Find Birds
by Jack Wright

There are still some people who don’t find bird watching interesting. One of the secrets is knowing where to look for particular birds, so if you don’t know where to look for birds you’re reading the right document. You can start by looking at farmlands for birds because these are open unlike the woodlands where birds can hide.

Everyone knows the magpie the long tailed black and white bird which feeds on dead meat. The second most common is probably the collared dove. The collared dove is a grey bird with a black ring around its neck. These two birds are also quite common in gardens. If you see a large all black bird it is a carrion crow. An unusual bird is a lapwing which is an endangered species. The lapwing is a black and white bird with a little tuft on the back of its head. This is just a start to the farmland birds. There are many more such as the swallow, goldfinch, greenfinch, little owl, barn owl and pheasant but this is the time to use a bird book. Some birds are just found in winter such as the redwing and fieldfare so there is no point trying to find them in summer.

There are other birds that you can only find at certain parts of the year. For example some sea birds nest on cliffs such as the guillernots and razorbills, which are only seen during the spring nesting season. A bird that isn’t always there is the puffin, which always lives in the sandy parts of the cliffs. The puffin has a multicoloured beak a white breast and a black back and also a little black line next to its eye. The puffin eats small fish especially sand eels. Some other birds that live on the cliffs are the shag, the gannet and the cormorants. It’s great fun watching them dive into the water to catch fish.

You don’t have to identify your garden birds in order to enjoy them. You can spend hours watching the acrobatics of the blue tit, the robin digging for worms, starlings fighting over some bread and if you have a pond with a few rocks above water level you can see grey wagtails hop along so they can get a drink.

These are just some examples to start you off on your bird watching adventure.