New Birding Stations at the Library

Birding, or birdwatching, is an activity the whole family can participate in to discover the abundance of wildlife diversity in our own backyards. We’ve found the best places for birdwatching in our libraries, and set up birdwatching stations with all the tools you need to get started. Visit the children’s departments of Twin Hickory, Tuckahoe, and Varina to check them out!

Each station features a poster with the most common backyard birds of the Eastern United States, a copy of The Young Birder’s Guide, and brochures that will help aspiring birders identify and locate birds in the Central Virginia area. Best of all, you can visit our children’s reference desk and borrow a pair of high-quality binoculars, perfect for getting a close-up look at the birds that call our backyards home.

Many birders keep a life list of all the birds they have seen. We’ve created a list of the 20 most common birds in Henrico County as a starting point. Download the list here or pick up a copy at your library.

Here are some of the amazing birds we have spotted at our libraries:

• Red Wing Blackbird (Tuckahoe)
• Red-Shouldered Hawks (Tuckahoe)
• Wild Turkeys (Fairfield)
• Bald Eagle (Fairfield)
• Great Blue Heron (Libbie Mill)
• Goldfinch (Libbie Mill)
• Catbird (Glen Allen)
• Downy Woodpeckers (Twin Hickory)
• White-Eyed Vireo (Varina)

We hope you can be as excited about birding as we are. Let us know what you spot! Comment on this post or tag us @henricolibrary on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

If you are interested in learning more about birding, Lewis Barnett from the Richmond Audubon Society will be at Libbie Mill this Thursday, August 22 at 7:00 pm for some hands-on learning about birds in our area. Check out some of our favorite bird books for kids and adults below.

For Kids

Bird Guide of North America by Jonathan Alderfer
Little Kids First Big Book of Birds by Catherine D. Hughes
Noisy Bird Sing-Along by John Himmelman

For Adults

Of a Feather: a Brief History of American Birding by Scott Weidensaul – also available on Hoopla.
Kingbird Highway: the Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder by Kenn Kaufman – also available on Hoopla.
The Thing with Feathers: the Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human by Noah Strycker – also available on Hoopla.