Teach me about birding

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My girlfriends (no pics)

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First Down-vote.

You get an app and you get on it. Think of birding as an electric scooter.

King bird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
It is on Amazon.

And anything to get the hell out of the house should be encouraged. Don't listen to these fools.

That all sounds like really nice stuff that her next boyfriend can sell for meth.

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My girlfriend (no pics)

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First down-vote

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Probably for the best. I bet she’s hideous.

But I still downvoted OP to follow proper protocol.

Bird
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Bird (disambiguation) and Birds (disambiguation).
"Aves" and "Avifauna" redirect here. For other uses, see Aves (disambiguation) and Avifauna (disambiguation).
Birds
Temporal range:
Early Cretaceous (Aptian) – Present,[1] 121–0 Mya
Bird
Examples of various avian orders.
Row 1: Red-crested turaco, shoebill, white-tailed tropicbird
Row 2: Steller's sea eagle, grey crowned crane, common peafowl
Row 3: Rock dove, Anna's hummingbird, Atlantic puffin
Row 4: Southern cassowary, rainbow lorikeet, American flamingo
Row 5: Gentoo penguin, grey heron, blue-footed booby
Row 6: Bar-throated minla, Eurasian eagle-owl, keel-billed toucan

Scientific classificatione
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Ornithurae
Class: Aves
Linnaeus, 1758[2]
Extant Orders and temporal range
See orders
Synonyms
Neornithes Gadow, 1883
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves, characterized by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds are the only living dinosaurs, having evolved from feathered dinosaurs within the theropod group. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species,[3] more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which evolved from forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming.

Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Many of these early "stem-birds", such as Archaeopteryx, retained primitive characteristics such as teeth and long bony tails. DNA-based evidence finds that birds diversified dramatically around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, which killed off the pterosaurs and all the non-avian dinosaur lineages. But birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. The closest living relatives of birds are the crocodilians[4].

Some birds, especially corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animals; several bird species make and use tools, and many social species pass on knowledge across generations, which is considered a form of culture. Many species migrate annually over great distances. Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and songs, and participating in such behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially (but not necessarily sexually) monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years, but rarely for life. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous (one male with many females) or, rarely, polyandrous (one female with many males). Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching.

Many species of birds are economically important as food for human consumption and raw material in manufacturing, with domesticated and undomesticated birds being important sources of eggs, meat, and feathers. Songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano (bird excrement) is harvested for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure throughout human culture. About 120 to 130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry.

I'd skip the documentaries. There are enough good birding videos out on the web that you can watch for free.

Might look into binoculars.

What area do you live in? I can probably advise on some nearby spots.

It is, but you better have plenty of storage space.