Armchair Birder | Backyard Birds and Bird Watching

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A practical guide for curious bird watchers

You do not need to be an expert to enjoy birds. Start with what you notice outside your window, at a feeder, in a park, or on your next walk.

01

Identify Birds

Use colour, size, behaviour, habitat, and location to narrow down the bird you saw.

02

Backyard Birds

Learn about feeders, birdseed, water, gardens, nesting, and common backyard questions.

03

Bird Watching

Get straightforward advice about binoculars, bird calls, photography, and getting started.

04

Birds by Region

Explore birds across Canada and the United States through broad regional guides.

Bird identification guides

Turn a brief sighting into useful clues

Start with size and shape, then add colour pattern, behaviour, habitat, region, season, and sound. These guides provide a repeatable method for identifying unfamiliar birds.

01

How to identify a bird you saw

Use a field-note routine, photographs, sounds, regional filters, and several matching clues.

02

Identify birds by size and shape

Study silhouette, posture, bill, wings, tail, legs, proportions, and flight style.

03

Identify birds by sound

Listen for pitch, pace, rhythm, repetition, tone, and the habitat around the singer.

04

Identify birds by behaviour

Use posture, feeding style, movement, climbing, swimming, flocking, and flight.

05

Identify by colour and field marks

Use head patterns, wing bars, breast markings, rump patches, and tail details.

06

Why birds change appearance

Compare male, female, juvenile, seasonal, moulting, worn, wet, and backlit plumage.

Backyard bird guides

Build a safer backyard routine

Start with the yard, choose useful food, keep feeders clean, provide shallow fresh water, and maintain hummingbird nectar safely.

01

How to attract birds

Use water, food, plants, shelter, safer windows, and patient observation.

02

Where to place a feeder

Balance nearby cover, visibility, weather, cleaning access, and bird safety.

03

Choose the best birdseed

Compare sunflower, safflower, nyjer, millet, peanuts, suet, and seed mixes.

04

Clean a bird feeder

Use a practical schedule and recognize when the feeder needs immediate care.

05

Stop seed from sprouting

Reduce waste with better food, smaller portions, trays, and regular cleanup.

06

Why the feeder is quiet

Check natural food, migration, seed condition, predators, and recent changes.

07

Attract birds to a bird bath

Make water shallow, easy to notice, safe to approach, and simple to keep clean.

08

Place a bird bath

Balance partial shade, useful cover, clear sightlines, windows, pets, and cleaning access.

09

Make hummingbird nectar

Use the correct sugar-water ratio and avoid red dye and unsuitable sweeteners.

10

Change hummingbird nectar

Keep nectar fresh with frequent replacement, careful cleaning, shade, and smaller batches.

11

Place a hummingbird feeder

Choose a visible, shaded, sheltered location with safer windows and easy cleaning access.

12

Why hummingbirds are not visiting

Troubleshoot season, nectar, placement, flowers, insects, predators, and territorial birds.

13

Keep ants out

Use a water moat, prevent leaks, clean sticky surfaces, and block alternate paths.

14

Keep bees and wasps away

Use a saucer feeder, repair leaks, relocate it, and avoid pesticides near birds.

15

Choose native plants

Match regional range, sunlight, soil, moisture, mature size, and bird value.

16

Compare plant types

Build habitat with trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, vines, and lower cover.

17

Why birds hit windows

Learn how reflections, clear sightlines, migration, and territorial behaviour create risk.

18

Make windows safer

Use full exterior patterns, screens, cords, paint, or film that birds can see.

19

Help after a window strike

Contact a rehabilitator promptly, contain a small bird safely, and give no food or water.

20

Stop reflection attacks

Cover the outside reflection on windows, patio doors, chrome, and parked-car mirrors.

Common backyard sparrows

Put the identification method into practice

Compare eight familiar sparrows, then use five focused guides for pairs that look similar at first.

27

Identify backyard sparrows

Use breast pattern, crown, throat, tail, behaviour, habitat, sound, region, and season.

28

Song Sparrow vs House Sparrow

Compare shape, streaking, bib, face, tail, buildings, shrubs, groups, and songs.

29

White-crowned vs White-throated

Check throat, yellow lores, crown, age, bill, habitat, sound, and season.

30

Chipping vs American Tree

Compare eye line, bill, breast spot, body shape, habitat, sound, and date.

31

Song Sparrow vs Savannah

Check tail, bill, streaking, yellow near the eye, open grass, brush, and sound.

32

Fox Sparrow vs Song Sparrow

Compare size, bill, chevrons, eye line, scratching, season, and regional form.

Common backyard finches

Identify colourful and streaked feeder visitors

Compare eight familiar and irregular North American finches, then work through five focused look-alike guides covering red finches, small streaked feeder birds, and large northern grosbeaks.

33

Identify backyard finches

Use bill shape, streaking, wing pattern, red or yellow placement, behaviour, range, and date.

34

House Finch vs Purple Finch

Compare male backs, female faces, breast streaking, bills, tails, habitat, sound, and season.

35

House vs Purple vs Cassin’s Finch

Use range, crown shape, bill, red placement, female face, undertail, wings, and tail.

36

Goldfinch vs Pine Siskin

Compare streaking, bill shape, winter colour, wings, tail, flight, calls, and feeder behaviour.

37

Evening vs Pine Grosbeak

Use bill size, wing contrast, tail length, male and female plumage, food, calls, and winter movement.

38

Redpoll vs Pine Siskin

Compare cap, facial pattern, bill, streaking, wing bars, yellow flashes, calls, and flock behaviour.

Common backyard woodpeckers

Recognize familiar tree-climbing birds

Compare eight useful North American woodpeckers, then work through five focused guides covering black-and-white look-alikes, flicker forms, sapsuckers, red-headed names, and two large familiar species.

39

Identify backyard woodpeckers

Use size, bill, back pattern, red placement, tail, sound, behaviour, tree signs, range, and season.

40

Downy vs Hairy Woodpecker

Compare bill length, body scale, outer-tail spots, calls, drumming, branch size, age, and sex.

41

Yellow-shafted vs Red-shafted Flicker

Check wing and tail lining, moustache, face, crown, nape, sex, range, and mixed features.

42

Yellow-bellied vs Red-naped vs Red-breasted Sapsucker

Compare geography, red coverage, face stripes, nape, throat, wing patch, juveniles, and hybrids.

43

Red-bellied vs Red-headed Woodpecker

Compare the whole head, barred or solid back, white wing patches, hidden belly colour, sex, age, and behaviour.

44

Northern Flicker vs Pileated Woodpecker

Use size, brown or black plumage, crest, white rump, white underwings, ground feeding, excavation, and calls.

Common backyard chickadees

Recognize small, active feeder and forest birds

Compare six North American chickadees, then use four visual comparisons and a sound guide for birds that require range, habitat, eyebrow, cap, nape, back, wing, flank, whistle, and call clues.

45

Identify backyard chickadees

Use cap, eyebrow, bib, back, wings, sides, habitat, elevation, region, behaviour, and sound.

46

Black-capped vs Carolina Chickadee

Compare range, song, pale wing edging, flank colour, photographs, call pace, and mixed birds.

47

Mountain vs Black-capped Chickadee

Look for the white eyebrow, then check conifers, elevation, sides, wings, movement, and sound.

48

Boreal vs Black-capped Chickadee

Compare cap, nape, cheek, bib, sides, wings, spruce habitat, range, lighting, and calls.

49

Chestnut-backed vs Black-capped

Check chestnut versus gray back, sides, wings, Pacific forest, calls, and regional variation.

50

Identify chickadees by sound

Compare whistles, call pace, pitch, scratchy notes, rasps, gargles, habitat, and range.

From Don

Bird watching can begin from a favourite chair

I’m Don, the narrator behind Armchair Birder. My wife, Robin, and I love watching the birds around us. Her name could hardly be more fitting.

This site is for anyone who pauses when a new bird lands nearby and wonders what it is, where it came from, or how to encourage it to return.

Meet Don and Robin

Explore the site

Learn at your own pace

Use Armchair Birder as a quick reference or settle in for a deeper look at the birds you see every day.

Common bird questions

Understand familiar behaviour, seasonal changes, feeding habits, and the small mysteries that make birds so interesting.

North American bird guides

Learn about widespread species as well as the birds associated with particular climates, habitats, states, and provinces.

A better backyard for birds

Make thoughtful choices about food, water, shelter, window safety, and bird-friendly plants.

Discover the birds around you