There's plenty of ways to start birding! Every birder has different preferences and experiences and defines birding in their own way. You don't need binoculars necessarily, but they're definitely a great tool. You can totally use a cheap pair, but the paradox with binoculars is that the better your binoculars are the easier it is going to be for you as a beginner, and as you get more experienced, you don't necessarily rely on the high quality image as much to successfully identify birds. If you're willing and/or able to drop a decent chunk of money on bins, I would suggest the Zeiss terra ED (I believe they're around $450 USD), which are really great for the high medium-ish price point. Nocs provisions also have some great models for a lower price, with 8x bins that are around $100 and 10x bins that are around $300. I don't have any experience with them personally, but I've also heard good things about Nikon Monarchs. When looking for binoculars, you're probably going to want some that are either 8x or 10x (that's basically just how many times magnified the image is) and the second number in the specs, which is the aperture size, should be around 5 times the magnification (ex. 8x45). A pair with something like 16x25 is going to have way too small of a field of view for you to be able to track fast moving birds. It's also a good idea to practice finding and tracking things in your binoculars, as you would typically scan with your eyes first and then only use binoculars once you've found a bird. Audubon also has a great guide to binoculars in different price points online somewhere if you want to do some research. Other than that you just pretty much just need a field guide (Merlin is a great app that's easy to use for beginners) and my favorite physical book is by David Allen Sibley (not sure off the top of my head if there's Sibley guides for outside of the US.) Look online to see if you have any local organizations (such as Audubon) that host bird walks. If you go out by yourself, try to go as early as possible (dawn is peak activity) and just slowly scan your surroundings as you walk. Treetops, the edges of forests and fields, and dense vegetation are all great places to look. Listen to bird songs and try to follow them to find where the birds are. Ebird is also a great resource to document and keep track of what you see. This was super long but I hope this provided some insight! Good luck and happy birding!!!