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Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Birding for Kids

We love to encourage kids to get involved in birding activities. Kids who are interested and informed about birds become the conservation leaders of tomorrow. Here are a few tips and resources about birding for kids (click on the red links for more information.) Even small children can be introduced to birding. Make sure and lower spotting scopes to their height so they can see the birds.



Our Stokes Beginner's Guide To Birds covers the 100 most common birds in the east or west and is organized by color of the bird so even children who cannot yet read, can look up a bird they see. The newly published, Young Birders Guide by Bill Thompson, III, is also a wonderful resource. Older kids who are already into birding should have one of the many full size birding field guides.

Kids should have appropriate sized binoculars, with smaller more compact binoculars given to smaller kids, and


full-sized binoculars for older kids.

The Young Birders part of the American Birding Association website is an excellent resource for kids age 10-18. They have a Young Birder of the Year Contest with prizes in categories for keeping a field notebook, bird illustration, bird writing and bird photography. They also have kid's birding camps and kid's scholarships to those camps and other birding activities. A Bird's-Eye View bimonthly newsletter is edited and written by young birders, (only $10 for 6 issues).

Most importantly, you can help spark an interest by taking a kid birding, whether it's your own kid, a grandchild, neice, nephew or just a friend.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

awsome i shoude get the western giude and those binokulers!!!

Anonymous said...

awsome i shoude get the western giude and those binokulers!!!

Kim said...

I just got myself a pair of your Stokes Meadowlark 8x25's and can't wait to put them to use.

Lillian Stokes said...

Kallen,
Hope you enjoy our Stokes Meadowlark binoculars.
go to this page on our blog for tips on how to use your binoculars:
http://stokesbirdingblog.blogspot.c
om/2006/12/birding-binocular-tips.html

Kim said...

Thanks for the link. I am new to binoculars so the tips will help.

I tried them out this morning before work and they are fantastic. I had a pair of cheap binoculars that were really hard to see out of. The Meadowlarks allowed me to see things far away and close by as well (I just had to tinker with the knobs). I am very happy with them.

Anonymous said...

those binoculurs are very nice and not exspencive at all, i think i will git them!!!