Wingspan – Top rated game even among non-birders! Has anyone tried it?
Bird Bingo – Great for elementary school kids learning bird names.
Bird puzzles are fun: Cornell and Charley Harper
Schlitz Audubon Raptor Program has put together bird education kits, Nature Activity Learning boxes. A fun way to share birding with young birders. And Wehr has Get Outdoors nature activity backpacks for sale.
For cold days, I love these hand warmers. They are rechargeable and get nice and HOT. They also serve as battery packs for phones. I have the one that includes a flashlight. Or keep your hands warm and watch the birds from inside. By next year this Bird Buddy bird feeder including a bird-selfie camera should be available.
Keep the birds coming by all winter with a heated bird bath – or heated dog water dish for a cheaper option.
Book Suggestions
Pete Dunne, director of Cape May Bird Observatory, is recommended by Norma. She particularly likes The Art of Pishing, Tales of a Low-Rent Birder, More Tales of a Low-Rent Birder, The Feather Quest, Arctic Autumn, Bayshore Summer, and Prairie Spring. The Milwaukee County library system has a number of his titles.
Katie Fallon’s book Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird caught Jennifer’s eye.
Neil Hayward wrote the story of his big year. He is honest about the travel challenges and frustrations (and expenses) of tracking birds through out the US. But I loved how much he enjoyed the birds he saw and his birding friends. Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in a Big Year
Kenn Kaufmann’s Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder is his story of hitchhiking back and forth across the country doing a big year when he was 16. Both Colleen and Helen recommend.
Not exclusively a birding book is The Sun is a Compass. The author, Caroline van Hemert, is an ornithologist studying chickadee beaks. She and her husband take a 4,000 mile solely human powered trek – kayaking, rafting, hiking and skiing – through Alaska. Her description of birds and other wildlife are excellent.
From the New York Times Best Books of 2020 Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl and Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty and Achieve Peace with a section on macaws.
Check the Resources page for more suggestions. And please add any other indoor bird games, puzzles or books to the comments.