Bird watching, a surprising activity!

One in five people in the United States and a similar number in Europe use to enjoy bird watching. And it is increasingly becoming even more common. What is attracting people? Why such popularity? What are the benefits to us? This article will try to give an answer to these questions.

Figure 1. A male black-throated mango (Anthracothorax nigricollis),
very common in Southamerica

Bird watching allows us to know better the birds and learn more about nature and wildlife. The idea is, first, to identify the species that has been found according to the audio and visual features that are detected. It can be done with the naked eye, with the aid of binoculars or listening to the sounds they produce. It is an activity that can be done with the family and you do not need to go far from where you live.
The park located near your home or even your own garden will probably provide excellent opportunities for that. All it takes is time and patience. While the most seasoned observers try to find rarest birds in more complex habitats, using cameras or audio devices to watch birds, the general idea is the same in our case. You have to consider that over 10,000 species of birds have been identified in the world, so there are plenty of opportunities out there.

Figure 2. A male red-necked tanager (Tangara cyanocephala).
It can be found in the south and east part of Brazil, north of Argentina and Paraguay.

But how can we identify birds?
It is very similar to how we identify our neighbors. At the beginning everyone may seem strange, but after a while we detect certain particular characteristics such as size, shape, habits, etc. Birds are like little treasures that are ready to reveal. Once we put our attention on them, we begin to know them better and to admire its beauty. Many of these animals are colorful. Think of a color, and there is probably at least some birds that have that color. But its appearance is not the only feature that attracts our attention, there are its singing and all the details of his life, mobility and environment . Actually bird watching is a bird's study.
Birds are vertebrate animals having beaks. Although not all fly, they have always wings, they are hatched from eggs (egg-laying) and have feathers, which makes these animals unique. It is interesting to note how each type of bird has adapted to a specific environment and can be found from the southern end to the northern end of our planet.

Figure 3. A female burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia)
found throughout North and South America. 

The shape of the beak is usually related to the type of food they have. Some are thin and sharp for fishing as heron's beaks, others have a curved beak and pointed to tear the flesh like eagles, others like parrots can have strong beaks to eat hard fruits and so the variety is immense. Each type of bird has adapted not only its peak, but his whole body for a specific habitat. This is the reason also for migration or moving long distances even changing continents to find the right place with the type of food they require. So far it is not known with certainty many of the characteristics of these migrations and how well they know the right places to go at the right time. Some biologists have devoted to studying birds and they are called ornithologists. They have classified birds in various ways, for example, considering the type of food, like fruit-eating birds, granivorous birds, feeding on grains, insectivores, feeding on insects, nectar eating birds, carnivores that feed on meat, fishing birds, scavengers, which feed on dead animals, omnivores that feed on eggs, etc.
There is also another division according to the type of habitat or environment in which they live as jungle, mountains, wetlands, sea, etc.
The best way to identify them is to start getting to know the different groups of birds that share similar characteristics like the silhouette, posture, behavior, etc. For this there are books that have all the detail and help.

Figure 4. A male violaceous euphonia (Euphonia violacea) is a small
passerine bird found in Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina.

Why people watch birds? It's hard to explain. When we do this activity all the accumulated stress of daily life goes away. The contact with nature recharges our energy. We need also to display some physical activity like walking that improve our health, we get in tune with nature because generally we wear using natural colors or camouflage to not scare birds and we are also doing an activity that contributes to the preservation of these animals. Finally, this results in greater environmental education and love of nature that moves us to act on their preservation. "In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught" (Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist).
This is the purpose of this article, to put more attention to birds and nature and motivate you to study them and to preserve and spread this to more people.
Our future as humanity and consequently our survival depends on preserving nature. To do this, we must shift our focus from just thinking about us, and start paying attention to our surroundings and their people and animals.
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