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WORDS ON BIRDS
Gifts can enhance enjoyment of birds
November 24, 2007
Steve Grinley
The holiday shopping season has begun, so it must
be time for my annual gift suggestions for the birders in your life.
Now that bird watching is so popular, it is likely that there are some
bird enthusiasts on your holiday list. Or perhaps now is the perfect
time to get someone close to you more interested in birds.
A gift membership to a conservation organization would
benefit the recipient and the organization alike. On a local level,
the Massachusetts Audubon
Society, Essex County Greenbelt
Association, Trustees of
Reservations, or Parker
River Clean Water Association are all worthwhile investments in
the future of local bird life. Mass Audubon runs many programs and
field trips, such as Wednesday morning birding, which would make
unique gifts for the birder on your list.
For those that might prefer more tangible gifts, a bird feeder
is always a great gift. A bird feeder can provide hours of
entertainment for young and old alike and it is a great way to
introduce most anyone to nature. Feeders come in all shapes and sizes,
from simple to elegant, from window feeders to complete with pole and
squirrel baffle. Even if someone has a bird feeder, they can always
enjoy another one. Perhaps a thistle or suet feeder will expand the
number of feathered visitors to their backyard. If they have had
experience with squirrels, there are many new feeders on the market
that are very successful at keeping squirrels off and allowing birds
to feed. If you know someone who has had become obsessed with keeping
squirrels away, they would surely get a laugh from one of those
comical shirts or coffee mugs that have a
"squirrel wanted" poster on them.
Though spring seems so far away, bird houses
help bring it a little closer. They make super gifts, especially for
those that want bird activity
without the "chore" of filling a feeder. Birds will nest in spring and
summer and may also use houses in winter for roosting, getting out of
the cold and inclement weather at night. There are also cute roosting
pockets made of straw, sea grass and other materials, that birds will
use for nighttime roosting. Wrens, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and
other birds will use roosting pockets and bird houses and may nest in
them come spring.
Perhaps it is time to bring nature closer to someone by
giving them a new pair of
binoculars or perhaps a spotting scope.
Optics have improved so much in recent years that you don't have to
spend a fortune to get a crisp, clear and close-up view of beautiful
birds in the backyard or the ones in the marshes of Plum Island. A
quality pair of binoculars will enhance the experience of watching a
cardinal at the feeder. or a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead. For
those that have good binoculars, a spotting scope would provide a
closer view of that distant snowy owl on a distant knoll or the eagles
in the trees across the Merrimack River. The better the optics, the
better the view, but good quality binoculars and scopes are within
most people's budgets today.
To help identify the birds at the feeders or through
binoculars or scopes,
identification guides are
appreciated gifts. One can always use another field guide. Peterson’s,
Sibley’s and the National Geographic guides are the most popular.
There are also tapes or CD's to learn bird songs and for the computer,
identification guides with pictures and songs on CD-ROM. If you know
someone who is taking a trip soon, you may consider getting them a
guide to the birds of that region or country, or a guide on where to
find birds in that area. For general reading, Good Birder’s Don’t Wear
White, Why Woodpeckers Don’t Get Headaches and All Things Remembered
are recent releases that are sure to please. Any of Pete Dunne’s
stories of birds or birding are both informative and entertaining. For
children, classics like Owl Babies and Stella Luna are always popular,
and the more recent The Boy Who Drew Birds tells the story of John
James Audubon.
For more general gifts, there are some cool gifts to
help learn bird songs. The Bird Song Identiflyer, with cards for
learning groups of birds, remains popular with a newly released
woodpeckers card. The same company has released the iFlyer, which is a
wand that will play more than 200 bird songs via bar code. Extra bar
code stickers are available for your field guide so you can now also
hear the bird that you are trying to identify. The popular Bird Songs
book has a built in player that plays the songs of the birds detailed
in this coffee table book. If you are looking for a more high-tech
gift, there is software that adds bird songs to an iPod and field
guide software for a palm pilot.
Any gift that helps someone enjoy birds and nature is
one that will surely be appreciated this holiday season and, likely,
for years to come. Steve Grinley
Bird Watcher's Supply & Gift and Nature Shop at Joppa Flats
Newburyport, MA
BirdWSG@Verizon.net
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