Is your schedule too busy most days for birding? Don’t despair if you don’t always have time to pick up a pair of binoculars. If you enjoy watching bird behavior, then you might have more opportunities for birding then you realize. You can make a lot of interesting observations, even on the busiest days, just by being a bit more observant. You probably won’t add to your life list, but it can still be fun to watch common species.

Recently I have made a handful of interesting birding observations without picking up a pair of binoculars. A couple days ago, I briefly stepped outside to take a computer break, when I noticed an American Crow flying with a small stick in its bill. The crow entered the crown of an Acacia tree, and flew away a few minutes later, but his time without the stick: I just found my first nest of the year! A few hours later, I was sitting in front of the computer again when I was distracted by loud crow vocalizations coming from the Ginkgo tree outside my office window. A pair of crows were in the tree breaking off twigs – I guess that’s where their nest sticks are coming from!

Yesterday I found myself stuck in traffic in one of those intersections with traffic lights suspended by huge metal arms extending over the traffic lanes. I was waiting in a left hand turn lane, but the green light was so brief that the wait was considerable. I was beginning to become frustrated because only a handful of cars ahead of me passed with each green light. That’s when I noticed the European Starlings. Each of the four huge metal arms suspending the traffic lights had one small protruding horizontal pipe. I watched as starlings flew into and out of each pipe on the intersection’s four traffic light arms. The starlings were probably using the pipes as nesting cavities. Eventually I was able to pass through the intersection, but I was a lot less aggravated after making a fun birding observation.