Recreational Birdwatching — Relaxing, Fun and Educational!

Recreational Birdwatching on the Farm

If your idea of a birdwatcher is “Miss Jane” from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” it’s time to refresh your understanding.

At least for me — an amateur, recreational birdwatcher, it can be a fun, relaxing, and educational activity!

Part of the joy of living on a farm is watching the beauty of nature unfold on a daily basis. Wild birds that frequent our woods, our porch, and our feeders are a joy to us.

We love our wild “feathered friends,” and have enjoyed spending many hours listening to their different sounds and songs, watching their funny and sometimes “bizarre” flying patterns, and their behavior (or I should say misbehavior) around other birds, particularly at feeding time.

Not long after we were married and moved to our farm, Rick gave me as a birthday present a compact guide to Tennessee birds.  It’s one of my most treasured gifts.  Although I will readily admit that I am by no means a bird “aficionado,” the pages are well-worn and the pretty cover photo of an American Goldfinch has faded.  I use the guide as my “go-to” reference when I see a species I can’t identify.

In a previous post, I talked briefly about hummingbirds, now long gone from Tennessee and migrating across the Gulf of Mexico. We attract them to our back porch in season with a homemade mixture of sugar water (I stopped using the premixed solutions with the red dyes as I didn’t want to risk harming the birds). I gauge the timing of their appearance each year within just a few weeks after our red azaleas bloom.

Besides the beautiful coloring of the hummingbirds, their flying ability, in both speed and direction, is astounding. They can fly both vertically and in reverse and briefly reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour!

Other species of birds we see frequently on the farm include the:

• Chickadee
• Eastern Bluebird
• Northern Cardinal
• House Finch
• White-breasted Nuthatch
• Tufted Titmouse
• Wren…just to name a few!

Of special mention would be the Red-Bellied and Red-Headed Woodpeckers that frequent the woods near our home.  They are not only beautiful to watch, but fun to locate by their incessant pecking when looking for food or nesting sites.

Some of these woodpeckers can live as long as 20 years in the wild, but the number of red-headed woodpeckers has declined dramatically as they’ve been outcompeted by other birds for nesting sites.

Birdwatching is Fun, Relaxing and Educational

Several studies support the fact that being out in nature can be good for you: reduce stress, improve mental well-being, and allow you to get some healthy exercise.

Watching birds and encouraging birds to visit or live on our farm has been tremendously rewarding for us.

From our birdwatching activities, we’ve learned how the white-breasted nuthatch has what is called an “undulating” flight pattern, which means it flies up and down and up and down as it flies away from the feeder (akin to a rollercoaster); how the Northern Cardinal greatly prefers black sunflower seeds to other seeds; and how the tufted titmouse will hold a sunflower seed with its tiny feet, and repeatedly strike its bill against the seed to expose the inner contents to eat.

We thoroughly enjoy our birdwatching activities. The wild birds make us laugh and smile. 

Give amateur birdwatching a try, and let me know if you discover its’ benefits as well!