Bird watching is basically a simple job that you can just start your watching with a binocular. But if you want to enjoy more fun in watching birds, you need to prepare more skills and tools for the bird watching trip.
Field guide
You need a book of field guide to birds that help you to know what types of birds you can watch and identify the birds you are watching. If you have some guys to be a team to watch birds, you can consider to hire a local field guide who can help to find the birds in a short time.
A Binocular or a spotting scope
It depends on the distance of the birds you are watching. If not too far away, a light portable binocular is capable and easy to carry with. If the birds are 100 meters or further away from you, or actually you want a more detailed observation, you may need a spotting scope that delivers much larger magnification to you.
Dressing outdoor and not in a bright color
Bird watching is an outdoor activity, so you should dress like an hiker. But don’t dress in too bright that would scare the wild birds away. Especially avoid dressing in bright white as white is a color that indicates danger to most of wildlife.
Whistling can attract some songbirds
Whistling by exhaling through your rounded lips does attract some songbirds to come close to you. But sounding too loudly or many people whistle at the same time to make actual noise will scare the birds off.
A notebook or a digital camera mounted on your telescope to record what you are observing
As a professional bird watcher, you need a notebook to make notes on its appearance and behavior.
- What is it doing?
- What size, shape and color is it?
- Does it have wing bars, an eye line, a long tail, and any other prominent mark?
You can also mount a digital camera or your cellphone camera to the Binocular or the spotting scope via an adapter, watch and record the birds at the same time with photos/videos. Then make notes in your computer with these photos/videos.