Like many others, you may find that a personal journal will give
added depth and meaning to your experiences in birding. You can use it to compare
your own sightings over time, share notes with companions, or simply recall special
moments in the field.
Format
In creating a journalistic record, you can choose from a broad range of formats.
There is no standard. If you wish, you can simply check the box for each bird
you see in a location checklist. You can list birds, noting species, location
and time in a Day-Timer or on a calendar. You can keep notes, sketches and snapshots,
like a personal diary, in one of the small hard-cover blank books. If you wish
to keep a more detailed journal, you might consider using 8 1/2 x 11-inch
paper that can be maintained and filed in one of the more durable three-ring
binders.
Content
In a more detailed journal, you might consider including:
- Species (common and
scientific names), including description (for example, size, plumage, eye color,
distinctive characteristics, call or song);
- Abundance and behavior
(for instance, species count, courtship, nesting, territorial defense);
- Date and time;
- Location (even in
your back yard, see A Back Yard Bird Sanctuary) and weather conditions, including
temperature; and
- Habitat, including
cover, blooming or seeding plants and available prey.
Possible Journal Form
An example of a simple form you might use in keeping
a birding journal in pdf format is linked
here.
Obviously, you can add pages to the species notes to accommodate your observations,
sketches, cutouts and photographs (see Bird Photography), and you can file your
notes in any number of ways, for instance, by species, date or location.
Your journal can increase in value as it grows over time. You and fellow
birders may turn to your journal and other supporting records to trace a species'
use of specific migration routes within the four great Flyways of the United
States; estimate a species' abundance or decline within an area from year to
year; use a species' numbers as an indicator of an area's environmental health
from year to year; or understand a species' relationship with the ecological
system of a region.
As a part of your journal, you might also keep a record of exceptional, but
possibly enlightening, events. For instance, in a desert park just before noon
on September 6, 2008, a clear hot day in south central New Mexico, I saw a humming
bird (probably a Black-chinned since that is a common species in the area) in
hot pursuit of a swallow (possibly a Cliff Swallow). They passed in a blur perhaps
five feet from me, just a few feet above the ground, and swiftly disappeared.
I had never seen a hummer chase so much larger a bird so far. I made a note,
and I shall seek an explanation.
For information on other aspects of birding, see Finding
the Birds, Bird
Watching Basics, A Back Yard Bird Sanctuary and Bird
Photography.
