Joining a birding group:
Birders tend to be very friendly and enjoyable people to associate with and can
be a big help to the beginning birder. If you would like to belong to a birding
group or participate in their field trips and other activities, you can find the
one nearest you on the
organizations list
and contact them to see how you can participate. If you're not an
"organization person" you can still be in touch with what's going on in
the the state or a local area by signing up on the state
"Birdnet" hotline or any of several birding
hotlines around the state (they're free and anonymous -- how can you lose?).
Get connected:
By signing up on one or several of the
e-mail hotlines you can be informed as
quickly as possible about the latest sightings of rare and interesting birds in
your area or around the state. You can also find this same information
(but you have to go there and look for it, as opposed to being informed by
e-mail) from the web site "Hotline Sightings Page"
which also gives you access to state, area, county, and national hotline
messages and reports. This information can be of great help if you want to
find some rare and interesting birds.
Learn
about the bird species in Utah:
You can print out a checklist of the birds found in the state, or in
national parks and reserves, etc., by going to the
"Print Center". (There's also a complete list of checklists,
some of which are NOT in printable format, on the
"Utah Checklists" page) There are also
bird profiles and a
"photo Gallery" on the web site with
information about the birds status in Utah and photos taken by local
photographers. A good bird field guide is a must. You can get one at
a local bookstore or order one from our on-line "Utah
Birds Bookstore".
Find out about the best birding places in
your area:
The "Utah Birds" web site has an extensive list of birding places in
Utah. They are
listed by county so you can easily find the best birding places in
your local area and they are listed alphabetically
so you can look up a place you might hear about on the "Birdnet." If you
would like an overview of birding places all around the state you can
visit the
"Birding Utah" page.
You can participate in bird monitoring for
the state:
By reporting rare sightings on the "Birdnet," other birders can find
the birds and either you or they can report the sighting to the
Records Committee. The records
committee reviews these
sightings records
(which now available to view on the web site) and maintains an
official state checklist, with information about abundance and status of each
species in Utah. A list of
accepted rare bird sightings is on the web site with links to
"undocumented" sighting, which come mainly from the hotline reports, which have
not been submitted or accepted by the Records Committee.
Are you a lister?:
Many birders in the state keep lists of birds they've seen.
Some keep a list of birds they've seen in the state, some list the ones they've
seen in their yards -- there are a lot of different lists you can keep..
You can send these numbers in to by posted on the web site. We have
State Listing Records,
County Listing Records, and records
that Utah birders have seen in different states, countries all around the world.
It's fun to see how many birds people have seen in different places and
different durations of time -- we have day lists, month and year lists.
This is a sport in and of itself.
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