About Armchair Birder
Meet Don and Robin
Bird watching is much more Robin’s thing than mine. I enjoy it, but she is the one who notices which crow is which, knows the birds of prey over our neighbourhood, and keeps teaching me how much is happening outside our own windows.
Robin is the bird watcher in our house
I like bird watching. Really, I do. But Robin is the serious birder in our house.
She notices patterns I would miss. A hawk passes overhead and she usually has a much better idea of what it is than I do. The same goes for the vultures, falcons, and other birds of prey that move through our neighbourhood.
I tend to come at birds from the question side. What bird is that? Why is it doing that? Does it remember us? Then I start reading. That mix works pretty well for Armchair Birder.
The crow family that keeps coming back
We have a murder of American Crows that visits our home, and this isn’t a one-season relationship. The same family line has been coming around for several generations.
Robin pays attention to them as individuals and as a family. She knows their routines, watches how younger birds fit into the group, and notices when something changes.
Crows are hard not to get attached to once you start watching them closely. They remember. They learn. They watch us too.
That is one reason pages such as do birds recognize people? and how smart are birds? are more than abstract questions around here.
Yes, the crows get puzzles
Robin has been giving the crows food puzzles made for dogs and letting them work out how to reach the reward.
Watching them approach a new puzzle is half the fun. Some problems are easy. Others take a little more time. You can see the birds stop, look, try something, and change tactics.
It is a good reminder that bird behaviour can be much richer than a quick glance suggests. Our new do birds play? page gets into some of that learning, curiosity, and play behaviour.
Birds of prey are part of the neighbourhood too
The crows get plenty of attention, but Robin also keeps track of the birds of prey around us. Hawks, vultures, falcons, and other raptors are regular reasons to look up.
She has a good sense of which birds frequent the area and when they tend to appear. I am still much more likely to ask, “What was that?”
That is not a bad thing. A lot of this site starts with exactly that kind of question.
More of our own bird photos are coming
Robin has built up a decent bird photo collection over the years, and we will be adding more of those images to Armchair Birder.
I want the site to use real photos from our own bird watching whenever we have the right image. We will add them gradually rather than forcing a photo onto every page just to fill a space.
If a page does not have a suitable photo yet, that is fine. The information should still work on its own.
Why Armchair Birder?
You do not have to travel far, buy expensive gear, or turn every sighting into a checklist. Some of the best bird watching can happen from a window, a porch, a backyard chair, or a familiar walk.
That is the idea behind Armchair Birder. The site is for people who notice a bird and get curious.
Sometimes the question is practical. Which bird is at the feeder? Sometimes it is wonderfully basic. Do birds have knees? Can they smell? Where do they sleep?
I want the answers to be accurate without sounding like a textbook. If a scientific term is needed, I will explain it in normal language.
A guide for North America
Armchair Birder covers birds across Canada and the United States. Location matters. So do habitat and season. Quite often, those three clues will get you closer to an identification than staring at one tiny feather mark.
Robin brings a lot of the observing. I bring plenty of questions, research, and the website-building side of things. Armchair Birder is where those two habits meet.