My birding gear

I have a lot of tools I use both in the field and at home that help my birding.  Sometimes I think about paring down and going back to basics, but then I look at my photos and I remember that my eBird lists help the Cornell Lab of Ornithology study all kinds of things related to birds.  So here are the things I use:

Binoculars:  About 5 years ago, I invested in a pair of Eagle Optics Ranger 10x42s.  These binoculars are waterproof and come with a lifetime warranty, and I love them.

Camera: Last year I bought a gently used Canon XSi on eBay.  Best.  Purchase.  Ever!  I use either a 75-300mm or a 500mm fixed lens for my bird photos.

Scope: Barska 20-60x60.  It was a gift a number of years ago, when I was starting to get more serious about birding.  At around $100, it was the perfect scope at the time since I didn't know then how much I'd get into birding.

Camera phone: iPhone 4S.  I've been taking pictures with this through my scope without the aid of any kind of attachment, but it's probably time to get an adapter so I can get better pictures more easily (instead of wiggling the phone around in front of the scope's eyepiece and hoping it'll line up just right in time for me to get a decent photo before the bird moves out of view).

Maps: Apple Maps on my iPhone to provide turn-by-turn directions when I'm driving somewhere unfamiliar.  And in Iowa, I use my Sportsman's Atlas to find nearby parks and other wildlife areas or to decide where I want to go.  I also use the BirdsEye app's Find Nearby Birds feature to see what other birders have reported in the area when I'm trying to decide where to go birding.

Checklist app: BirdLog North America.  This lets me immediately upload my birding lists to eBird.

Field guides:  On my iPhone I have iBird Pro.  I use it and the Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America to help me ID birds when I'm on the road.  I try to avoid looking up birds while I'm actively birding and just use a notebook to make notes and sketch out the field markers of an unidentified bird I'm seeing.  Then I go back later and ID it.  At home I have my (quite heavy) Sibley Guide to Birds, which is my favorite of all North America bird guides because of all the detail it shows, but I find its size and weight too unwieldy to take it into the field with me.

When I need to identify a bird call or song, I use iBird Pro and 2 websites: WhatBird and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds.  One great feature of WhatBird is they list similar-sounding species.  So let's say you heard a bird that sounded kind of like a Chipping Sparrow, but you know it wasn't that species.  You can go to WhatBird's Chipping Sparrow page, and they have a list of other species who sound like a Chipping Sparrow.  You can even listen to each one!

It's a lot of tools, I know.  I didn't start using them all at once, but now I consider them all pretty essential.  Yes I could probably get by with just my binoculars and one field guide, but all the "extras" help me be a better birder (I'm taking to you, spotting scope and WhatBird), help me find new birding spots (Sportsman's Atlas and BirdsEye), or help my birding contribute to the bigger picture or share my passion with others (eBird and cameras).