THE MIGRANTS ARE COMING: TIPS FOR SPRING BIRDING 

• Prioritize Learning the Locals. Thumbing through a Sibley or Peterson guide can be daunting: there are a lot of birds. Start by “learning your locals,” advises Jeffrey Ward, birder, science communicator, and Bronx native. Use ebird.org to get a sense of what species you can expect in a specific place, in a particular season, adds Jeffrey Kimball, NYC Bird Alliance’s past president. 
• Look Beyond Feather Color. Colors are important, yet can be deceptive, Kimball warns. Take families of birds together, learn their overall shapes and forms—and the sizes and shapes of their bills. Understanding how birds think—their preferred habitat and behavior—helps in finding and identifying them, points out Donna Schulman, who moderates the New York Birders Facebook group. “Luckily, 2020 has been a banner year for bird behavior books. There’s David Sibley’s What It’s Like To Be A Bird, the Peterson Reference Guide to Bird Behavior by John Kricher, and How Birds Work by Marianne Taylor.” 
• Make Up Mnemonics. “Songs get easier when you turn a song into English, like “Pleased, pleased, pleased to meet you” from the Chestnut-sided Warbler,” says Ward. “What also helps is learning the local bird calls so you’re able to tell which are the ‘different’ ones.” 
• Book Birding Time. Schulman says, “I clear my calendar for the first two weeks of May, sometimes the last few days of April too. I start dropping hints to my family and non-birding friends, such as, ‘I believe Mother’s Day is best celebrated on the first rainy day of May.’”
• Scout a Route. “Walk around your neighborhood with new eyes and find your own local birding patches,” says Schulman. In New York City, even the smallest parks can hold great surprises during migration season.
• Bolster Your “Bins.” Picking the right binoculars can be confusing. “Look for 7x42 or 8x42,” Kimball advises. (The first number refers to magnification, the second to lens diameter.) “You want the 42 so the bird you’re looking at is less likely to hop out of view,” he explains. “You won’t necessarily get more value from higher magnification than 8, since bigger, heavier binoculars tend to shake more.” 
• Expect to Make Mistakes. All birders, even experts, misidentify birds. Consider a mistake a chance to learn, say Ward and Kimball.
• Go Out! “No matter how helpful apps and websites can be, learning in the field is the best option, says Ward. “Seeing the bird make the song just sticks that song with that bird forever! Mix in some online practice along with some field practice and you’ll become a migrant pro in no time.”
  
  

REMEMBER YOUR BEST BIRDING PRACTICES

• Avoid stressing birds or exposing them to danger.
• Be particularly cautious around active nests and nesting colonies, roosts, display sites, and feeding sites.
• Limit the use of recordings and other audio methods of attracting birds, particularly in heavily birded areas. (This includes popular New York City parks, where out of both concern for the birds and mutual respect for fellow birders, we recommend you refrain from playing bird recordings.)
• Always exercise caution and restraint when photographing, recording, or otherwise approaching birds.