Bird Behaviors that you would like to see/hear in-person

What are some local bird behaviors that you want to see in-person? (local meaning the behavior of a bird that lives in your general vicinity rather than a bucket-list bird that lives halfway across the world. There have been a number of other posts discussing what taxa you would like to see if you could travel anywhere in the world, but I’m more interested in what you would like to witness if you were just in the right place at the right time in your area) Some birders (and iNattersin general) can get a reputation of just wanting to see an animal in order to add it to their lists, so this post is to encourage people to slow down and appreciate the behavior of their local bird life.
For example, I really want to see the mating display flight of an American Woodcock. I have seen the bird before and even heard the “peent” calls but I’ve never been lucky enough to see their display flight. I also want to hear a Ruffed Grouse drumming on a log, (I’ve seen grouse a couple times, but never heard the males drumming).
One behavior I have been lucky enough to see is Chimney Swifts funneling into a chimney to roost like a tornado made of several hundred birds.

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I’d realy like to see the great crested grebe’s mating ritual. I don’t see many bird species in Pitești, and Prundu lake is a hotspot, where I’d like to see those birds along with other water birds.

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Bittern calls.

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Roadrunner running.

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Want to see bald eagles lock talons and twirl towards the ground/water and release before impact

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Haunting. Guttural like larger herons. I used to hear them at the water treatment area in Novi Michigan. That was an awesome nature spot. I’ll get around to posting those old photos.

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Or the loon’s sound (the wolf like one) and eventually get a picture :) of the loon and a recording of the bird.

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I would really like to see the streams of birds crossing the med to Tarifa. I missed my chance in both spring and autumn in 2024, but I’m optimistic for 2025. There is a bit of analysis paralysis as different species cross at roughly different times, but I must just go.

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I live in Northeast Ohio. I have experienced that woodcock display flight in a field. It was back when I was a beginner birder about 15 years ago. Some experienced birders told me about a field where they saw it. They told me to go just before sundown and to bring a small flashlight. (The light doesn’t bother the birds at all.) It was so cool. The birds flew around me peenting just like the experienced birders said they would do. It was like watching flying footballs.

What would I like to see? I would like to see a lot of shorebirds foraging. I live in a county were there really aren’t any mudflats. We do get migrants. But, it’s not a lot. I really like watching them poke around in the mud. They are just cool birds in the way they are shaped and in their movements.

I would also like to see a golden eagle soaring. They pass through during migration. But, I would like a really good look at one.

Our local parks used to have a volunteer program that was a raptor nest survey. I participated in that for a number of years before they eventually stopped doing it (and just told us to use Cornell’s Nestwatch. They parks were uploading our data to that website anyway.) I saw a lot of really fantastic nesting activity. I still occasionally monitor a nest and enter it in Nestwatch. A side benefit for regularly visiting a nest (at a safe distance where you are not disturbing the birds) is that you get to know the other resident animals in the area. And, I think I learned to relax and stay still for extended periods of time doing that nest watch. So, that’s more bird behavior I will probably seek out again.

I would like to recommend to anyone that you try to go to a bird banding session if possible. You may have to go very early in the morning. But, it’s a chance to see the birds up-close.

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Here in Northeast Ohio there is a marsh in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park where there have been American bitterns the past few years. I have seen them booming and heard them booming. They would take a couple of breaths before they started. Maybe it was to inflate their throats.

You had to go either early in the morning or just before sunset. So cool! And, last year during the eclipse, I went to that marsh, sat down on a folding stool and waited. When it got dark, all the birds went quiet. Then, the bitterns started booming (and the spring peepers and other frogs/toads started making noise).

We also have had some least bitterns in that same marsh the past few years. They seem to call any time of day. But, they were extremely difficult to see. The American bittern would come out into the open. You could see it clearly with binoculars in the dry, brown cattails. Maybe it thought it was well-hidden.

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I’ve seen this quite a few times where I live.

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Unless you go to an owl banding session, in which case it’ll be at night instead of early morning. I went to an owl banding in 2023 where I saw my first Northern Saw-whet Owl. They are so cute! The guy who was banding the owl was also very knowledgeable and told us all about the species, and parted the owl’s feathers to show us its ears, which was very cool.

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I would love to see the Sage Grouse’s mating display. They are such beautiful birds. I would also like to see a covey of bobwhites in their “quail wreath”, where they arrange themselves in a circle tails in, and heads out. It’s such an adorable behavior, and they always looks so cozy in their quail circle! I have seen this behavior in captive bobwhites, but to see it in wild bobwhites would be incredible. Hearing a prairie chicken booming would be amazing too, although with my unilateral deafness, I’m not sure if I’d hear much unless I was very close. :')

Besides gamebird behaviors, I think it would be interesting to see an owl regurgitate a pellet.

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Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by just watching”.

Birds (and other animals) are doing cool things all the time, but the trouble is that most of the time, they’re not doing anything, so you need to have the patience and the cold tolerance / heat tolerance to sit there for hours and observe them.

We have a raptor photographer in my area who documented amazing behaviours that I never would have believed if I wouldn’t have seen his photos and videos.

But he will go out at -20°C for hours and stare at raptors. I will never do that.

There was a cobra watcher in South Africa who treated snakes like birds. Got to know individuals, and spent hours observing them. He documented many cool behaviours.

So I guess my answer is, I would like to see ALL the bird behaviours.

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My top bird behavior that I’d like to see is any type of lekking behavior. Especially by grouse or something tropical like Cock-of-the-rock.

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I was fortunate to do years of surveying Lesser Prairie-chickens on their leks. Very cool behaviors. I got photos of the birds but didn’t have a good smartphone at the time, otherwise I would have videoed their displays. Would like to see Dusky Grouse displays, which I’ve seen once but no pics.

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Now that is an interesting question. What do I know, really, of the birds in my home area? By “home area,” I can mean the North Carolina Coastal Plain or the Antillean island of Hispaniola. Either way, field guides are mainly focused on identification – field marks and such. They touch on behavior only incidentally where it is relevant to field identification.

Now, for North America, The Birder’s Handbook by Paul Ehrlich (yes, that Paul Ehrlich) includes vignettes on bird biology, including some about behavior. That was how I found out about the mockingbird’s wing-flash display (which I subsequently observed). But for the Antilles, I have no such source; all I have is my identification guide.

The upshot is that Adam Wargon’s answer,

is all I am left with, unless and until I find out more about behaviors that I have not seen.

I’d love to see and photograph a hummingbird’s nest.

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Wood duck ducklings leaving their nests.

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This is an actual description of how I photograph all of it… right place, right time…and recognizing the awesomeness of it all.

Taking the time to sit and watch is a gift. Use the gift of wonder.

It took several minutes of watching to figure out what the red wing blackbirds were doing in the farmed field across the road. A loud display of males flying up and swooping into the growth… where a female would appear and both disappearing again.