This is an area for Inaturalist birders to share their favorite birding places and stories.
One of my favorite birding moments. One morning I was outside feeding our animals. I saw a black looking bird circling one of our ponds. I thought in the back of my head, I wonder if that’s a Double-crested Cormorant. So I ran inside and got my binoculars and ran down to the pond. Sure enough it was a juvenile Double-crested Cormorant. Here is the link to the observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/249146849.
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Close to where I live in Homer, Alaska there is a place called the Beluga Slough. During the summer, you can see ducks, geese, swans, eagles, sand pipers, and sandhill cranes as well as a lot of swallows, which are my personal favorite. I don’t have any observations of my own from the area yet, but plenty of other people have taken photos of the birds there.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/165663828
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/165171465
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/165171002
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/213018810
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/244199500
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/244199505
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Awesome!
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Do you see many White-bellied barn swallows?
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I don’t think we have White-bellied barn swallows in Alaska, though we do have Barn swallows. I think the swallows which live in the Beluga Slough are either Tree swallows or Violet-green swallows.
I hope to get some pictures this next summer to help confirm their ID.
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I love these two spots:
https://ebird.org/hotspot/L474644
https://ebird.org/hotspot/L5674845
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Nice!
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In case you want to find new favorite places.
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Awesome!
For California, I’ve been to 10 of the top 12 hotspots including visiting the Farallones by boat. If that doesn’t count I’ve been to 9 of the top 12. They’re all pretty fantastic.
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Unfortunately one hotspot from that list is completely destroyed and is not likely to be open to birders ever again. The sad story of Galileo Hills/Silver Saddle Resort. It used to be a green oasis in the middle of the desert with a correspondingly large bird list. After a series of trials and tribulations it is mostly abandoned and unkempt. The formerly beautiful trees mostly dead and dying as it returns to desert. The Google streetview vehicle traveled the area back in April 2024 and it almost makes me cry to see it.
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I’ve been to 8 of the top 10 hotspots in Penobscot County.
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I don’t know that I have a favorite spot although there is one place here in SE PA where you can see the snow geese by the hundreds if not thousands which I love going to every spring called Middle Creek Wildlife Area.
My favorite birding experience was honestly going to Disney World with my kids a couple of years ago. The variety of birds and oh how beautiful all of them was just astounding.
Also visiting my own home country last year and going to their botanical garden and a couple of parks I got to see so many different and interesting birds.
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Jenner Headlands Preserve on the California coast north of Bodega Bay in late autumn. A great place to watch hawks soaring at low level: Northern Harriers, Ferruginous Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks. Probably other species if you spend more time there.
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this is basically another view of the data from https://ebird.org/hotspots, except that it allows folks to add more information / descriptions of the places and lacks the higher-level heatmap view, right? are there any other differences?
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it doesn’t define places, but you can use observations data from iNaturalist to sort of highlight where there are relatively many bird observations vs all observations. then you can compare that to a reference basemap to see which places are highlighted.
this can not only show where there might be parks or such that are birding hotspots, but it can also show the specific parts of those places where people observe relatively many birds. for example, below is a view of that data for Brazos Bend State Park near Houston, which shows which trails are probably best for viewing a lot of birds (lots of green, yellow, and red) and which are probably not (mostly dark blue):
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Skagit Valley and Snohomish Valley in Washington are great places to visual birding. Sehome Arb Hill Lookout is a great place to hear birds but not much for visual sightings.
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I went to Montezuma Wildlife Refuge in NY in August, and it was an amazing experience. The volunteers were great to talk to and very knowlegable and friendly, and the wild habitats were beautiful and full of birds. I did the Wildlife Drive, and then walked a few trails. I saw five new birds that day: Trumpeter Swan, Pied-billed Grebe, American Black Duck, Common Gallinule, and Double Crested Cormorant. Here’s my checklist for the wildlife drive.
If you are ever in Central New York, I highly recommend Montezuma Wildlife Refuge!
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Sax-Zim Bog in Minnesota where Owls are particularly prized
Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding areas where Whooping Cranes are prized
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Texas is a good state for birding especially during migration. Many birds fly through Texas on their way down south in the fall. Also many birds fly through Texas on their way up north in the spring.