You already know the answer if they are a birder.

They seriously follow birds and actually will travel great distances to see a rarely seen bird, and love to buy all the latest books bells and whistles. No lens or camera is too expensive if it helps them get that perfect shot!

A birdwatcher on the other hand is not quite so fanatical about buying the latest tech and is generally more laid back in their approach to watching birds. For example, they’re less likely to take on treacherous terrain, long distances or foul weather and carry a regular camera. Whichever they are you can find great gifts for them.

But before I go into that I have a story to tell you.

Before we moved into our current home we lived in a very nice area, with great neighbors, but as happens in cities most of the nature we saw there was the wrong side of human nature; drunks, drug addicts and police take downs. It was a very pretty neighborhood for the most part but sadly marred by its proximity to a rapid transit station, so as well as the aforementioned ills, it was noisy. I mean, really, really noisy from the traffic and at all hours. Of course there was the occasional skunk, raccoon, and birds but we were so uncomfortable outside, we really didn’t notice them much… Except for Biff and Muffy, (house finch) who I may do a story on too sometime.

But anyway…

Five years ago when it was time for a move, we were fortunate enough to find a home in a very quiet neighborhood. It’s high on a hill top, close to some waterfront park lands so nearer to nature and off the beaten path of main city arteries. Not a big deal, but for us a little paradise. Our backyard has lots of tress and is nicely secluded. It was quite the change from being fearful of our safety while sitting on our front porch chairs, to a car driving by a night being an ‘event’. Quiet…So nice and quiet. At our old place, I needed a fan going in our bedroom at night to act as white noise to drown out the traffic noise. I still use the fan but now it’s because I can’t sleep because it’s too quiet! LOL!

I was telling a story about birds and got off track or should I say out of focus so let’s get back to the story.

I never considered myself a bird watcher until our new move. Sitting out on the deck you see all types of birds, many of them I knew, many I didn’t. I slowly found myself being able to identify birds be their calls, or sounds they make during mating season. One bird we named Krupa (after the drummer Gene Krupa) because he would find anything metal to pound his beak on to attack the attention of a mate. He is a great drummer 🙂

So here I am now, a birdwatcher!

Last spring we noticed a Steller’s Jay flitting from tree to tree. (Who knew the Steller’s Jay is the provincial bird of British Columbia, where I live!) The cry was quite piercing. The jay became a more frequent visitor and more social, jauntily bouncing about our yard, hiding peanuts and other treasures, certainly not frightened of us. Then one day there were two. We thought that maybe they might nest. They would show up every now and then. Each, on its own coming pretty close to us, we even saw them together every now and then, but no sign of nesting.

It’s amazing the variety of sounds they make. The two jays together spoke quite differently to each other. Much quieter and almost like a whisper, sometimes it was low, buzzing chortle…Pillow talk?! Other times they would shriek and screech and we knew something bad was around. Billy chased out a cat as well as a raccoon. The jays would follow him along and talk to him while he exiled whatever baddie was infringing on their/own space or threatening their nest. I think this made them realize we were watching out for them. I wish I had a binoculars that record video so I could show you. Those are now on my wish list.

One day when we were sitting out on the deck Billy pointed to a tiny bird.

It was sitting in the old antique style bath tub filled with soil which doubles as piece of garden art beside our garage. We watched raptly for awhile, then sure enough what we suspect was the Mum Jay landed nearby and bounced around probably trying to instruct it how to get back up in the nest (which we still had no idea the location of). It stayed on the edge or sat in the tub for a day.

The next day it was out of the tub and on the grass bouncing around exploring, blissfully unaware of what a big bad dangerous world it had landed in. This was the cutest baby bird ever! The jays have a fan crested head, but this baby jay had a bed head. It looked like it had slept wrong and all the head feathers were scrunched. Kind of a punk rocker look. As dumb as the day is long but so adorable. The little guy was attempting to flap his wings but when he did it put him off balance. You could almost see on his face that he wasn’t sure what they were for.

The whole experience was kind of like having a little extended family, and we were as protective as the parents, guarding it from harm but careful not to upset Mom and Dad. I had hoped to get a picture of the baby but they managed to get it back in a tree before I could. The next day it was gone. This will always be a fond memory.

You can find some unique pet presents here!

So this is how I became a bird watcher and led me to personally look for bird watching items.