Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device like binoculars or a telescope, by listening for bird sounds, or by watching public webcams.
Horace Gundry Alexander was an English Quaker teacher, writer, pacifist and ornithologist. He was the youngest of four sons of Joseph Gundry Alexander (1848–1918), two other sons being the ornithologists Wilfred Backhouse Alexander and Christopher James Alexander (1887–1917). He was a friend of Mahatma Gandhi.
The National Audubon Society is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world. There are completely independent Audubon Societies in the United States, which were founded several years earlier such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Indiana Audubon Society, and Connecticut Audubon Society. The societies are named for 19th century naturalist John James Audubon.
The surfbird is a small stocky wader in the family Scolopacidae. It was once considered to be allied to the turnstones, and placed in the monotypic genus Aphriza, but is now placed in the genus Calidris.
Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey was an American ornithologist, birdwatcher, and nature writer. Between 1890 and 1939, she published a series of field guides on North American bird life. These guides were often written with amateur birdwatchers in mind, leading to the popularity of the birding movement.
Donald Ian Mackenzie Wallace, known as Ian Wallace, D.I.M. Wallace, or by his initials DIMW, was a British birder, author and artist.
David Allen Sibley is an American ornithologist. He is the author and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds, which rivals Roger Tory Peterson's as the most comprehensive guides for North American ornithological field identification.
Phoebe Snetsinger was an American birder famous for having seen and documented birds of 8,398 different species, at the time, more than anyone else in history and the first person to see more than 8,000. Her memoir, Birding on Borrowed Time, explores this achievement. She traveled the world multiple times to find birds in their habitats. She was described as having had an excellent memory and a strong competitive spirit.
Ludlow Griscom was an American ornithologist known as a pioneer in field ornithology. His emphasis on the identification of free-flying birds by field marks became widely adopted by professionals and amateurs. Many called him "Dean of the Birdwatchers."
The Lānaʻi hookbill is an extinct species of Hawaiian honeycreeper. It was endemic to the island of Lānaʻi in Hawaiʻi, and was last seen in the southwestern part of the island. George C. Munro collected the only known specimen of this species in 1913, which is housed in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and saw the species only twice more, once in 1916 and for a final time in 1918. No other sightings have been reported. They inhabited montane dry forests dominated by ʻakoko and ōpuhe. The Lānaʻi hookbill was monotypic within the genus Dysmorodrepanis and had no known subspecies. Its closest relative is believed to be the ʻōʻū, and some early authors suggested that the Lānaʻi hookbill was merely a deformed ʻōʻū. The Lānaʻi hookbill was a plump, medium-sized bird with greenish olive upperparts and pale whitish yellow underparts. It also had a yellow or white superciliary line and a white chin and throat. The wings also had a distinctive and conspicuous white wing patch. The hookbill's distinguishing characteristic was its heavy, parrotlike bill, which had the mandibles hooking sharply towards each other, leaving a gap between them when the beak was closed.
Jonathan Elphick is a British natural history writer, editor and consultant. He is an eminent ornithologist, a qualified zoologist; Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He is author of The Birdwatcher's Handbook: A Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland; Birds: The Art of Ornithology and The Natural History Museum Atlas of Bird Migration: Tracing the Great Journeys of the World's Birds, which received Bird Watching Magazine's 'Best Bird Reference Book of the Year'; as well as co-author of the Encyclopedia of Animals; the RSPB Pocket Birds; A Unique Photographic Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe with Jonathan Woodward and The National Parks and other Wild Places of Britain and Ireland, with photography by David Tipling.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to birds:
Claes-Göran Cederlund was a Swedish radiologist and birdwatcher.
The Ludlow Griscom Award for Outstanding Contributions in Regional Ornithology is an award bestowed by the American Birding Association upon individuals who are determined to have "dramatically advanced the state of ornithological knowledge for a particular region," through long-term studies of status and distribution, the writing and/or publication of field guides to birds of a certain area, work as part of a breeding bird atlas project, through the publishing of academic papers on regional ornithology, or through their efforts in inspiring and teaching about the subject of birding.
Colin Bradshaw is an English physician, ornithologist, and musician who was chairman of the British Birds Rarities Committee from 1997 to 2008. He was active in the BBRC for almost 20 years, both as a committee member and as chairman. He is a medical doctor by profession and travels extensively for birding, and among his other hobbies are guitar, cricket, and photography.
Birds of the World: Recommended English Names is a paperback book written by Frank Gill and Minturn Wright on behalf of the International Ornithologists' Union. The book is an attempt to produce a standardized set of English names for all bird species and is the product of a project set in motion at the 1990 International Ornithological Congress. It is supplemented by a website, the IOC World Bird List, giving updates to the published material.
Black Birders Week is a week-long series of online events to highlight black nature enthusiasts and to increase the visibility of black birders, who face unique challenges and dangers when they are engaged in outdoor activities. The event was created as a response to the Central Park birdwatching incident and police brutality against Black Americans. The inaugural event ran from May 31 to June 5, 2020. The week of events was organized by a group of STEM professionals and students known as the BlackAFinSTEM Collective.
Bird Names for Birds is a campaign to change the common names of American birds named after people, and to redress the recognition in ornithology of figures with racist or colonial pasts. Launched in June 2020 by ornithologists Jordan E. Rutter and Gabriel Foley with a public petition, in the midst of the George Floyd protests and in the aftermath of an incident in Central Park that paved the way to Black Birders Week, the movement emerged after several years of social activism by multiple American ornithologists and birders, many of whom are not affiliated with Bird Names for Birds but remain devoted to the cause. The inaugural petition, dated June 22, 2020, and co-signed by 182 individuals, urged the American Ornithological Society (AOS) to "acknowledge the issue of eponymous and honorific common names, to outline a plan to change harmful common names, and to prioritize the implementation of this plan". In 2023, the AOS formally announced that it would change all English-language bird names that are named directly after people.
Martha Conger Neblett Hagar, known as Connie Hagar, was an American birdwatcher and naturalist whose observations were valued by professional ornithologists, particularly her early observations of hummingbirds on the Texas coast.
The Bronx County Bird Club (BCBC) was a small informal club of birders based in the Bronx, New York, active between 1924 and 1956, with residual activity through 1978. The club was a major participant in the Audubon Society's Christmas census, observing more species in the eastern US than any other team for three consecutive years. Club members Roger Tory Peterson, Joseph Hickey, Allan Cruickshank, and William Vogt became well-known ornithologists and authors.
