Birds In Your Backyard

Image via Wikipedia

Now that Pam and I are experienced birdwatchers we figured we’d better expand our regular birding spots beyond our backyard.  So, this weekend we are going to try a few different locations close to our house that should offer us some variety in the birds that we see.

Get Out Of The Woods

As you probably know from an earlier post, our backyard is fairly wooded.  That’s great because we get a lot of birds but we’d like to find a couple of other locations nearby that will give us a shot at seeing some waterfowl as well as field-dwelling birds.  Luckily the Chattahoochee river is very close by as well as a couple of small lakes.  We’re hoping these locations will provide us with some new birds to see.

The Goal

Our hope is that we can find a few different areas, that are close to our house and easy to get to, that we can visit on a regular basis.  Hopefully this will give us the opportunity to see a larger variety of birds without having to expend a bunch of time and energy.

The Plan

Our plan is to take our binoculars with us as we’re out running errands and stop by a couple spots to see what we can see.  We have a couple of access points to the river that are easy to get to (one of them is right on our way to several stores we regularly shop at).  The closest lake is Berkeley Lake which is a little out of the way, but only by a couple of miles.  I ride my bike by, and around it, quite a bit and have seen numerous birds.  If our “scouting expeditions” prove successful we will add the locations to our list of local birding venues.

What About You

If you don’t watch birds outside of your yard, you might want to take some time to investigate some alternative spots.  If you do have regular “non backyard” birding spots, what kind of birding areas are they and how often do you visit them?