BIRDING IN PLACE

Are you looking for ideas to enrich your birding world while staying closer to home? Are you also, like many of us, missing the birdwatching community as well as our feathered friends?

I have had the good fortune to tour the world as a storyteller and author for more than 40 years. For the past dozen years, I have been a featured speaker at about 12 birding festivals each year, where I have shared the weekend with a few of my birding heroes but also where I have made lots of friends in the birding community, a wonderful collection of unusually fine folks.

In the past two years, I have taken birding trips to East Asia and South America. And last summer, I finally made it to my 50th state, Alaska. But like most of you, since the pandemic began, I have been spending a lot more time at home in northwestern Illinois. Nevertheless, I have been looking for ways to get my fix for more time with my avian friends.

BACKYARD BIRDING

I avoided listing for many years, and I have only recently joined eBird. (I quickly became a huge fan and advocate! Have you joined yet?) For years, I have promoted the Great Backyard Bird Count