While most birding seems focused on the “life list” of species seen, evolutionary biologist Joan Strassmann recommends “slow birding,” a style of birdwatching that focuses on birding wherever you happen to be and at your own pace.
“The idea of slow birding was inspired by the slow food movement, which was sparked by the arrival of a McDonald’s near the Spanish steps in Rome in 1986,” she explains. The movement’s manifesto “espoused a thoughtful, local, and delicious approach to food and embedded it in their politics… The analogy adopted here is that there can be more to birding than checking a new bird off a list, satisfying as that can be.”
This journal is a nice supplement to Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard, a guide which Strassman composed two years earlier.
Like a blank book or a journal, this book offers lots of space for sketching and personal notes. But it is mostly a guide to 16 common birds species, from the blue jay to the snow goose, with suggested observations like watching how robins hunt for worms or how juncos gather in groups or listening for the cedar waxwing.
Strassmann’s basic idea is to teach birders what to pay attention to in birding other than just identifying and collecting species.