Backyard birds and bird watching

Discover the birds around you

Armchair Birder helps you identify birds, welcome more of them to your yard, and enjoy bird watching throughout North America.

Identify a bird Explore backyard birds

Start here

A practical guide for curious bird watchers

You do not need to be an expert to enjoy birds. Start with what you notice outside your window, at a feeder, in a park, or on your next walk.

Identify Birds

Use colour, size, behaviour, habitat, and location to narrow down the bird you saw.

Backyard Birds

Learn about feeders, birdseed, water, gardens, nesting, and common backyard questions.

Bird Watching

Get straightforward advice about binoculars, bird calls, photography, and getting started.

Birds by Region

Explore birds across Canada and the United States through broad regional guides.

Bird identification guides

Turn a brief sighting into useful clues

Start with size and shape, then add colour pattern, behaviour, habitat, region, season, and sound. These guides provide a repeatable method for identifying unfamiliar birds.

How to identify a bird you saw

Use a field-note routine, photographs, sounds, regional filters, and several matching clues.

Identify birds by size and shape

Study silhouette, posture, bill, wings, tail, legs, proportions, and flight style.

Backyard bird guides

Build a safer backyard routine

Start with the yard, choose useful food, keep feeders clean, provide shallow fresh water, and maintain hummingbird nectar safely.

How to attract birds

Use water, food, plants, shelter, safer windows, and patient observation.

Where to place a feeder

Balance nearby cover, visibility, weather, cleaning access, and bird safety.

Choose the best birdseed

Compare sunflower, safflower, nyjer, millet, peanuts, suet, and seed mixes.

Clean a bird feeder

Use a practical schedule and recognize when the feeder needs immediate care.

Stop seed from sprouting

Reduce waste with better food, smaller portions, trays, and regular cleanup.

Why the feeder is quiet

Check natural food, migration, seed condition, predators, and recent changes.

Attract birds to a bird bath

Make water shallow, easy to notice, safe to approach, and simple to keep clean.

Place a bird bath

Balance partial shade, useful cover, clear sightlines, windows, pets, and cleaning access.

Make hummingbird nectar

Use the correct sugar-water ratio and avoid red dye and unsuitable sweeteners.

Change hummingbird nectar

Keep nectar fresh with frequent replacement, careful cleaning, shade, and smaller batches.

Place a hummingbird feeder

Choose a visible, shaded, sheltered location with safer windows and easy cleaning access.

Why hummingbirds are not visiting

Troubleshoot season, nectar, placement, flowers, insects, predators, and territorial birds.

Keep ants out

Use a water moat, prevent leaks, clean sticky surfaces, and block alternate paths.

Keep bees and wasps away

Use a saucer feeder, repair leaks, relocate it, and avoid pesticides near birds.

Choose native plants

Match regional range, sunlight, soil, moisture, mature size, and bird value.

Compare plant types

Build habitat with trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, vines, and lower cover.

Why birds hit windows

Learn how reflections, clear sightlines, migration, and territorial behaviour create risk.

Make windows safer

Use full exterior patterns, screens, cords, paint, or film that birds can see.

Help after a window strike

Contact a rehabilitator promptly, contain a small bird safely, and give no food or water.

Stop reflection attacks

Cover the outside reflection on windows, patio doors, chrome, and parked-car mirrors.

From Don

Bird watching can begin from a favourite chair

I’m Don, the narrator behind Armchair Birder. My wife, Robin, and I love watching the birds around us. Her name could hardly be more fitting.

This site is for anyone who pauses when a new bird lands nearby and wonders what it is, where it came from, or how to encourage it to return.

Meet Don and Robin

Explore the site

Learn at your own pace

Use Armchair Birder as a quick reference or settle in for a deeper look at the birds you see every day.

Common bird questions

Understand familiar behaviour, seasonal changes, feeding habits, and the small mysteries that make birds so interesting.

North American bird guides

Learn about widespread species as well as the birds associated with particular climates, habitats, states, and provinces.

A better backyard for birds

Make thoughtful choices about food, water, shelter, window safety, and bird-friendly plants.