My main birding activity is birding (from) the garden. This might sound like a rather dull and uneventful thing to do – and maybe it would be for some – but it has proven to be a fruitful birding location, a good exercise -especially for bird sounds – and very practical.
The garden.
Although there of course are drawbacks, I do enjoy birding in and from the garden. It is simply one of the best locations in my area, especially because it is so easy to keep an eye on.
The garden – a typical Danish 1970’ties villa garden around the house – is situated near fields (grassland and acres), with small and tiny forests and with lakes nearby. I can’t see them, but they are near. The sea is about 20 km away. (The sea is never far away, no matter where you live in Denmark). It has a great view over the mentioned habitats.
The garden itself is rather wild, giving good nesting opportunities in the barely cut bushes and with a good number of insects in the grasses and weeds.
Benefits of birding from the garden.
- Time savingI am not so fond of driving to a place to see 1 or more birds. I personally find it to be a bit counter productive – enjoying nature by driving for a longer while in a car.If I drove back and forth for an hour to come to a birding place, I could have spent these 3 hours or more in the garden.As birding from the garden is an often rewarding game of patience, I sometimes can see a lot in 3 hours, including surprises.
- It is always there.The windows from our dining/ living room are overlooking the garden, and whenever I eat or need a break at home, I go to the living room and watch outside. And I can always go out for 5 minutes into the garden, even if it’s raining or if there is a storm. Because of that, I know my garden and the surroundings well. I will quickly notice a different bird species.
- Great exercise.Using my gear – that I don’t have to carry – in different ways, recording sounds and learning the calls of small birds flying over my head is great preparation for birding other places. (Although I have to admit that I can get confused of all those birds on great bird locations). And I will always have the quietness and privacy of my own garden.
- Family and neighbours might get involved.My family is -perhaps sometimes unwillingly -getting to know a few things about our local birds -and with that their interest has been growing. It is very nice to hear the children being able to tell species apart -sometimes without too much effort – because they hear about it so often.I think at least some of the neighbours are interested as well, because for those that normally are not that attentive when it comes to birds, it can come as a surprise to hear the number of birds and the kind of birds seen or heard in their street.
eBird and the garden.
The power of the birding homepage and app eBird is its personal location system. I can make my kitchen window a location, the road to work or the area around the school. And by creating the garden as its own location and reporting what birds I saw and how many, I can now see exactly what I saw from my garden throughout a month, a week or a year, how many and so on.
The local Danish database DOF-basen has a slightly different system, where they have created locations for people to use, manly based upon the type of habitats in an area.
Which means that from my garden I can see at least two of their locations – with 4 or 5 other locations in the distance. Then they want me to write down in which location the bird was that I saw – as opposed to eBird who wants me to write from where I saw the bird. So with eBird I have my own location and I don’t have to worry about other locations.
Results from the garden:
eBird is not popular in Denmark at the moment, although it seems to be gaining some traction. eBird has at this moment 266 bird species seen in Denmark in 2024.
I bird (is that a verb?) on average something like 30 min. per day throughout the year -that’s 180 hours or more. By doing so, I have heard and/or seen 109 bird species in/from the garden since I started registering my observations in 2019. On average 80 to 90 species per year. A number of them are “lifers” – bird species that I have never seen before. Some of them I am not even sure if I ever would have seen them, if it wasn’t for my habit of standing still in the garden and watch. Just watch.
So if you are not in the habit of watching birds yet – but would like too – and if you have a garden and 30 min. you might want to start there!