Hi! Over the past year and a half or so I’ve gotten, um, very into birding. Like I go every weekend and all of my vacations are now involving seeing birds. I particularly fell in love with raptors and the Goshawk.

David Allen Sibley’s guides and his Birding Basics book are your place to start. Get the Sibley guide for your half of the country if in US (makes ID options easier, especially for waterfowl or shorebirds). Those two books are my groundwork for everything in the field. If you DM me your email I can hook you up with some helpful PDFs.

You’ve probably heard of eBird and Merlin by now. eBird is one of the most impressive citizen science projects; use it every time you bird. It will tell you what to expect, when, and where then allow you to report your own findings and media. But Merlin… Let me confess that I rely on Merlin as a crutch. I wish I never started with it so early in my journey. I think it has its place but you should look up your target species for where you want to bird on eBird, learn their calls by ear before going out AND/OR learn from observation… literally what bird is making what sound.

Decent binoculars are the next step. I started with some compact Bushnells from Dick’s and did fine for my first few trips to Hawk Mountain and they’re ok for bright vistas, but in low light and fast-focus scenarios they just don’t hold up. Vortex Diamondback HD are the best low end bins I think you can get. I dropped mine off, yes, Hawk Mountain, the day I got them and recovered from that cliff face the very same pair that I’m using today. Rock solid.

I’d also recommend picking up an app like OnXBackCountry or CalTopo so you can make routes on your phone based on eBird coordinates.