If you’re looking for a simple, rewarding activity that can help reduce stress, promote mindfulness and foster a connection to nature, give backyard birding a try. 

Avid birders John Campbell of Powell and Leslie Tribble of Cody both enjoy the feathered friends who frequent their yards day after day.

“I like to have birds around,” Campbell said. “They're a really nice connection to nature. It keeps me observing the world around me by looking at the birds that are here. It's a very relaxing thing to do. You kind of can forget about all your troubles in the world if you just sit there looking at what the birds are doing.”

Campbell grew up in Michigan on the edge of a wildlife refuge. His father was interested in birding, so as a young child he went on trips with the Audubon Society. 

“It wasn't until the early 1970s that I became much more interested in it myself,” he said. “I'm a plant ecologist. I taught at (Northwest College) here in biology, and so being attached to the natural world was just something that's always been with me.”

It was after he retired that he started paying close attention to the birds in his yard. Campbell lives on the west edge of Powell. With a lot of old cottonwoods, shrubs and spruce trees, there’s a good deal of cover for the birds. 

He usually has five feeders out consistently, with a sixth occasionally used. He also puts a crushed corn compound on the ground that feeds a lot of nonnative species like doves and house sparrows. 

“It keeps them more or less away from the expensive food that I use for ‘real birds,’ I guess you could call them,” he said.

Campbell feeds birds, not only in the winter when food is more scarce, but also in the summer. 

“Especially as breeding season comes around, many of the small birds need to supplement energy as they're raising them, and so I do feed all year round,” he said. 

He enjoys watching the behavior of all bird species he sees, including the invasive ones. And after tracking birds for some many years, he’s observed some interesting behaviors. For example, if something scares the birds he knows which area of his yard they’ll go to hide based on what species they are. 

“Before I was serious, I didn't think very much about who the birds were, what they were doing, and as I watched them, I realized that most of the birds in the yard are residential birds, residents here in the summer and in the winter,” he said. “They’re anchored around this neighborhood. They know me. I'm pretty sure they can hear the sound of my garage door opening when I lift it up to get food out, because suddenly they're in the tree up there waiting.”

Campbell also considers the entire Big Horn Basin his “bigger” yard and enjoys watching sandhill cranes when they migrate through the area. 

“They're big, handsome birds that have a lot of interesting behaviors on the ground and very distinctive calls when they fly over,” he said. “In the fall as they are migrating south towards their wintering grounds, there are typically between 200 and 1,000 coming through every night and overnighting in a field out south of Powell.” 

Sharing birds with others

Birds are a favorite topic for Tribble, who works at the Park County Public Library. Wanting to share her love of birds with others, she applied for and received a grant last fall for some bird programming. 

“Most of the programs are targeted to an older age group because little kids already like birds,” she said. “We’ve done several programs so far.”

Zach Hutchinson of Audubon Rockies has been a part of two programs, including one on feeding backyard birds. There have also been watercolor classes, a talk by a wildlife photographer about taking pictures of things with wings and a program about building bluebird houses. 

Most recently they hosted Read with a Ranger in conjunction with Buffalo Bill State Park. Katie Singleton read a few bird books and also had some hands-on activities for younger kids. 

“They’ve been popular,” Tribble said. “We have more programs coming and in May at different locations throughout Cody, we’re going to go out and help folks learn to identify birds.”

Tribble herself has six feeders and a bird bath in her backyard in Cody.

“I've just always been into birds, ever since I was little,” she said. “I used to go birding with my dad, and just have never stopped loving birds. I feed black oil sunflower seeds and I just started feeding safflower seeds just to see if anybody liked those. I also have some thistle, or nyjer, feeders, and some suet feeders.”

With the winds in Cody, Tribble mainly uses tube feeders so the seeds don’t blow away. She feeds birds from fall through early spring. In the summer when food is more plentiful for the birds, she takes down those feeders and puts up some for hummingbirds. 

In the winter, she usually sees at least 30 sparrows and finches each day, along with chickadees, pine siskins and red-breasted nuthatches. Eurasian collared doves, an invasive species, usually make an appearance as well. 

“They come and go throughout the day, and if the weather's bad, they'll be there all day,” she said. “This year we had such a mild winter, there were a lot of other food sources available to birds. I didn't get quite the variety I usually do.”

In January, Tribble had an unusual bird stop by when a hermit thrush landed in her bird bath. When she saw it she knew it was a thrush, but she wasn’t sure exactly what type. She took some pictures and sent them to Corey Anco at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. The photos were later seen by a bird expert in Laramie who identified it as a hermit thrush.

“It was a first for Wyoming to get a hermit thrush in the middle of winter like that,” she said. “So that was pretty exciting.”

All about birds

Both Tribble and Campbell use eBird, a project out of Cornell University, which has tools that allow birders to manage lists, photos and audio recordings, as well offers real-time maps of species distribution, and alerts that let you know when species have been seen.

“They do a bunch of citizen science and have developed basically a worldwide citizen science project called eBird, where you can go and make records of the birds that you see,” Tribble said. “It's worldwide, and as you travel, you can make checklists or records of the birds you see just wherever you happen to be.” 

Since he began keeping track on eBird, Campbell has had 100 different species of birds in his yard, with a guaranteed three species a day in the winter. 

“I could often have 100 and 150 birds here at a time,” he said. “In the summer, the numbers are up to 15 to 25 species in a day.”

Cornell University also offers another free app called Merlin, which is a sound identifier. 

“It will identify the birds that are calling and peeping and singing in your yard,” Campbell said. “It's not 100% accurate, but it's pretty good. It also has an option where you can put in the traits of the bird that you see, or you can add a photo to it. So it's a really good learning tool for people who become interested.”

Tribble adds that the Cornell site also provides online resources about how to feed birds, as well as different types of feeders and what they'll attract. There’s information on how to identify birds you see as well.

Tips for beginners

For anyone wanting to get started, Campbell recommends first just being more aware of the birds in your area, and then using a simple bird guide with pictures to help identify what you’re seeing.

“Everywhere you go there's birds,” he said. “You go downtown Powell, there’s birds. You go out in the country, there’s birds, but down to downtown New York City, there’s birds. And just looking at them gives you a connection to nature. It makes you look around and see what's going on in the world.” 

He said the majority of birders are more than happy to help beginners, so feel free to ask questions. 

“Most birders are very friendly people, so if you are somewhere looking at birds, and someone else is looking at them, and you don't know what you're looking at, just ask the person that's there,” he said.

If you want to start feeding, both Tribble and Campbell recommend starting with black oil sunflower seeds because more species enjoy them than other feeds, and they have a high energy content.

From there, you can branch out to other types of seed including thistle. Suet blocks – which are beef lard mixed with different berries and seeds – are also a good option in the winter months. 

Tribble said for her a 40-pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds lasts about three weeks and costs around $20. Price varies depending on where you live and how many feeders you have. 

“A friend of mine lives a little further up the South Fork, and if it's snowing, she can get 200 rosy finches that clean her out in about 30 minutes,” Tribble said. “She runs through a lot more seeds than I do.”

Campbell purchases 350 pounds of seeds at a time, and said he usually buys it three times during the winter for more than 1,000 pounds worth.  

And while wind in Cody can limit some types of feeders, Campbell said most options will work in the Powell area. His feeders include a couple of homemade platforms, as well as some that are vertical with plexiglass and others that have wire mesh. He said different birds are attracted to different feeders. 

However if you put one out and it’s not getting many birds or birds aren’t returning, Tribble said to try another type. 

“If you get a really cheap feeder, they're not designed well enough for the birds to feel comfortable using them,” she said. 

Feed and feeders are available at local hardware and farm supply stores including Ace Hardware and Murdoch’s. 

Upcoming programs at the Park County Public Library include:

• March 19, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Planting for birds and pollinators with Kendra Morris of Pollen Landscaping.

• March 31, 2-4 p.m., Watercolor butterfly painting with Olivia Bergeron of the Cody Conservation District.

• May 4, 5:30-7 p.m., Learn about owls with Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute in Montana.

• May 7, 14, 21, 28, 8 a.m., Birding field trips at various locations around Cody.