Birding

Blown away there's not a birding hub thread on MP yet given how well climbing marries with Birding.

Post your bird pics, new lifers, optics questions, and more.

Will go ahead and start off with the modern required viewing:

Discussion question here: What's the dream climbing/birding trip? Let's do some US based ones as well as some international ones.

Birding is dope! I recently bought a small pair of binoculars to take in my pack when weight isn’t a concern.

It’s still pretty hard for me to figure out what’s what though, I’m still pretty new.

As a person aspiring to get better at identifying all the birds I see while hiking, biking, climbing, etc... I strongly recommend the Merlin Bird ID app, it's amazing https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

It has two modes:
1. You can play 20 questions where you answer questions about size, location, color and it gives you recommendations of what your bird might be

2. You can enable audio, it will record the birdcalls and can very accurately detect and classify the birds it hears

A curious Prairie Falcon juvenile looking down at me from the top of a Flatiron 

We got hang to out with 96 at the Pinnacles a few years back 

We saw #27 on a tree branch on the way up angels landing in Zion a couple of years ago. On the chain sections with lots of people a maybe 15-20 feet away. Nobody dead yet so they didn’t care. We have the Merlin app as well, pretty cool app. I know a border who posts a bird of the day, guy has been all over and takes great photos. 

Kevinmurray wrote:

We saw #27 on a tree branch on the way up angels landing in Zion a couple of years ago. On the chain sections with lots of people a maybe 15-20 feet away. Nobody dead yet so they didn’t care. We have the Merlin app as well, pretty cool app. I know a border who posts a bird of the day, guy has been all over and takes great photos. 

Does he have socials? Always looking for more bird folks to follow

This is an insane conversation to be having on climbing forum - but does anyone have any good solutions for packing binoculars on a bike? Trying to combine the two but feels like I need a new frame bag to fit a pair of binos which feels like overkill

Peregrine Falcon nest that we saw across the way from where we were climbing earlier this year. We ended up seeing 3 different babies in the nest being fed by their two parents.

It was really great listening to canyon wrens while climbing in Eldo. . .and being bombed by pigeons when we stuck our hands into their nest cracks. . .

Tal M wrote:

Does he have socials? Always looking for more bird folks to follow

This is an insane conversation to be having on climbing forum - but does anyone have any good solutions for packing binoculars on a bike? Trying to combine the two but feels like I need a new frame bag to fit a pair of binos which feels like overkill

I got a handlebar bag for my gravel bike that fits my binoculars (without the case). 

Dusky Grouse at Wild Iris

peregrine (?) hanging out on the original El Niño pitches while we worked on a pitch of the variation.

been super interested in birds since watching listers, but still a gumby..

Anyone got a recc for a monocular that's good enough, light enough, and cheap enough? I loved birding in Kenya (lilac-breasted roller anyone?) but have been reluctant to carry glass when I'm schlepping weight a long ways in the PNW.

Edit - Here's a bee-eater as tribute

Big Red wrote:

Anyone got a recc for a monocular that's good enough, light enough, and cheap enough? I loved birding in Kenya (lilac-breasted roller anyone?) but have been reluctant to carry glass when I'm schlepping weight a long ways in the PNW.

Edit - Here's a bee-eater as tribute

Beautiful photo.

I haven't used it myself but I asked this a while back and was overwhelmingly recommended the Zoom Tube for an economic and light option, with the Vortex Solo 10x36 being #2.

Some birds that I observed in the Costa Rican rainforests from a couple years ago while visiting for my son’s wedding.

Great-tailed Grackle

All are iPhone photos. This next one was of the sacred and seldom seen Quetzal, taken with my phone looking through binoculars.

A Colorado Ptarmigan

A Breckinridge Canada Jay

A New Hampshire Loon

A Newfoundland Puffin

Tal M wrote:

This is an insane conversation to be having on climbing forum - but does anyone have any good solutions for packing binoculars on a bike? Trying to combine the two but feels like I need a new frame bag to fit a pair of binos which feels like overkill

I use a Vortex GlassPak Binocular Harness for hiking and trail running. It's for full sized binos.

https://vortexoptics.com/vortex-glasspak-binocular-harness.html

Female tufted coquette, Trinidad, 3/22/97. The bright throat iridescence is an artifact of the flash. Cibachrome print from Kodachrome transparency. 

A few from Tasmania in 2024 for something different.