Planning Your Bird Watching Field Trip
A field trip is defined as going afield — that is, beyond your immediate home surroundings or backyard. For many beginning bird watchers, their first organized field trip is with a bird club. This field trip can be an educational experience as you observe how other bird watchers act in the field, how they spot and identify birds, and where they go to find birds.
In the more traditional sense, a bird-watching field trip is going to a particularly good birding area for several hours or several days. Some folks decided to go see some birds in Montana, which was a long drive from their Pennsylvania home. They liked it so much that they stayed. Now that's the field trip of a lifetime!
 | Load the car with food, coats, boots, and other gear, more food, cold drinks of all types, the optics, a field guide or two, and yourselves, if you can fit. Then head off to see what you can see. Oftentimes you come back after a long day of bird watching exhausted, sunburned, and happy. |
Sometimes your luck just runs out and you get to a birding spot that has no birds! This happens a lot in the heat of a midsummer's day, or in the dead of winter. Here's a suggestion for keeping yourself interested on a birdless summer day. If it's sunny, look for butterflies. If it's the middle of winter, go find a warm, greasy-spoon diner and get a cup of hot chocolate. You can count the days until spring.
If you have common sense, you can plan a field trip just fine. Here's a quick checklist to help you:
- Plan where you want to go.
- Plot your route and determine your schedule (early wake-up and departure to get there for prime dawn birding, and so on).
- Gather binoculars, spotting scope, field guide, and bird checklist (if you use one).
- Check the weather and plan the clothing and outerwear you'll need. Then take one extra layer.
- Make sure that you have the right footwear (boots, rubber boots, extra socks).
- Pack or wear a hat with a visor.
- Add food, glorious food. Take some even if you plan to eat in restaurants or at quickie-marts.
- Get stuff to drink. You'll be thirsty more often than not.
- Take money. You may need cash for an emergency (especially coins for a phone call).
- Include other gear for comfort or necessity. Depending on the weather, the gear can include sunscreen, lip balm, sunglasses, binocular rain guard, emergency survival kit, and other stuff.
- Tell someone where you're going. You can't be too safe.
- Get a magnetic key-holder, put an extra set of keys in it, and affix it under the front bumper of your vehicle. When traveling, always pocket the keys before you slam the doors; the aggravation you save may be your own.
Gardening Glossary
annuals
Plants that complete their entire life cycle within one growing season. The plant germinates from seed, grows and blooms, and then produces seed and dies.
Gardening Glossary
biennials
A plant that take two growing seasons to complete its life cycle. It germinates and grows leaves and stems in the first year; produces flowers and fruit (seed) in the second, and then dies.
Gardening Glossary
bolt
When a plant flowers or produces seed prematurely.
Gardening Glossary
cold frame
A wooden or concrete block box in which you can grow plants or hold dormant during the cold winter months.
Gardening Glossary
cole crops
A family of vegetables, including broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts. They thrive in cooler weather.
Gardening Glossary
complete fertilizer
Any fertilizer that contains all three of the primary nutrients, N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium). Phrase is based on regulations governing the fertilizer industry. Does not mean that the fertilizer literally contains everything a plant needs to thrive.
Gardening Glossary
deadheading
The practice of pinching or cutting off spent flowers
Gardening Glossary
evaporative-pad humidifier
A humidifier in which fans blow across a moisture-laden pad that sits in a reservoir of water.
Gardening Glossary
harden off
The process of acclimating plants grown indoors gradually to the brighter light and cooler temperatures of the outside world.
Gardening Glossary
hardiness
The ability of a plant to survive is called its hardiness.
Gardening Glossary
humus
A stable end product of organic-matter decomposition that's believed to increase microbial activity in soil, improve soil structure, and enhance the root development of plants.
Gardening Glossary
Bacillus thuringiensis Bt
An effective bacteria that attacks only the larvae of caterpillar family insects. It is safe to other insects, animals, and humans.
Gardening Glossary
macronutrients
Mineral nutrients that plants need in the largest quantities: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur.
Gardening Glossary
mulch
Organic or inorganic material placed over the surface of soil, usually directly over the root zone of growing plants. Used to conserve moisture, kill weed seedlings, modify soil temperature, provide attractive covering to garden beds.
Gardening Glossary
organic matter
Once-living stuff like compost, sawdust, animal manure, ground bark, grass clippings, and leaf mold (composted tree leaves). Used to enrich soil and improve soil texture.
Gardening Glossary
perennials
Any plant with a life cycle of three or more years. Herbaceous (non-woody) perennials include flowering plants and herbs, mainly. Woody perennials include trees and shrubs. Longevity depends on the plant and growing conditions.
Gardening Glossary
pH
The measure of soil's acidity. Soil with low pH means it's too acidic; soil with high pH means it's alkaline. Most plants grow best in soil with a pH value between 6.5 and 7.2. Neutral soils measure 7.
Gardening Glossary
photosynthesis
The process through which plants take nutrients from the air and from the water in the soil to produce sugars that fuels the plant's growth.
Gardening Glossary
primary nutrients
Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are the three nutrients plants need in the largest quantities.
Gardening Glossary
root crops
Plants with edible underground roots such as onions, carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips. Most root crops are cold-weather crops.
Gardening Glossary
self-blanching
A type of cauliflower with leaves that naturally curl over the head and exclude light. Requires cool temperatures for leaves to curl effectively.
Gardening Glossary
sets
Small onion bulbs, about 1/2-inch wide, that were started from seed the previous year. Grow onion sets with the pointy end up.
Gardening Glossary
side-dressing
The act of adding a small amount of fertilizer around or "on the side" of plants after they're growing.
Gardening Glossary
succession planting
Planting small, 2-to-4-foot patches of plants every two weeks throughout the growing season so that you can harvest a crop over an extended period of time.
Gardening Glossary
thinning
The act of cutting the least robust seedlings in your garden to give the healthier plants more room to grow.
Gardening Glossary
vining crops
Crops that grow on vines, such as cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and winter squash. They usually require support (staking, trellising, etc.) to keep them off the ground.
