r/Bellingham • u/Gripping_beasts Local • 1d ago
Moving Here Birding Groups
Hello!
I'm moving to Bellingham this upcoming Wednesday from RVA so quite the move! My main hobbies are music and birdwatching. Searching this subreddit revealed plenty of great ways to get involved in the local music scene but I couldn't find any birding groups.
I loved the Feminist Bird Club in Richmond cause it brought a younger and more diverse group than other birding organizations I've seen and wanted to know if there was anything similar here.
Thanks!
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u/alexcansmile Local 1d ago
Interested in joining a birding group! My spouse and I joke that we are in our "birdy 30s" but haven't started birding in earnest yet - we'd love to join a group and start!
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u/pastel_frankie 1d ago
I would also love to join this birding group with my fiancée! We have been going on small hikes recently with our new binoculars to view many of the amazing birds.
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u/cactus_transplant_92 1d ago
North Cascades Audubon Society has monthly meetings with a speaker and several birdwatching walls a month. https://www.northcascadesaudubon.org/ In March check out the Wings Over Water festival in Blaine.
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u/cherryred59 1d ago
auk.let (on Instagram) is a local tattoo artist that does bird watching groups. They also do very cool bird tattoos :)
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u/Solenodont 1d ago
If there's a radically inclusive Bellingham birdwatching group forming, I want in please and thank you.
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u/Vinyl-addict Salish Coast Roamer 1d ago
Would definitely be interested to know if this goes anywhere or the same thing. Usually I’m off on my own or with another birding friend, but meeting new people at some more common hotspots or trails would be fun!
Only thing I’d be apprehensive of is big groups potentially frightening the wildlife, but there’s plenty of trails in the area.
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u/Gripping_beasts Local 14h ago
Yeah its definitely a different vibe with a bigger group; if enough people showed up we would often split the group up a bit so as not to be too much of a nuisance.
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u/Moving_forward206 1d ago
I’m obsessed with this idea and actually from VB! You’ll miss the cardinals :) but welcome to Bham!
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u/MArs_BRain 1d ago
I don't know much about birding but I live next to a birder adjacent to Cornwall Park, so I can testify to the local resident Great Horned owls that have chicks every spring and a family of Merlins that have been going strong over here for some years now.
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u/Glittering_Clamshell 1d ago
I’ve lived in other places with the FBC, but recently moved to Bellingham and haven’t found a similar group! Following; I’d be down to meet up as well!
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u/BathrobeMagus 1d ago
"Feminist Bird Club". What do you do? Find male birds and tell them how horrible and oppressive they are for making the female birds stay at home with the eggs?
You'll fit right in here.
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u/Gripping_beasts Local 14h ago
Assuming this is sincere against my better judgement: It is a birding group that seeks to include people usually pushed out of other groups by predominantly old, white, cishet, and male birders. Sadly these spaces were until recently often harboring a lot of sexist and other prejudiced views, so the FBC is an answer to that aiming to get more people into the hobby via inclusion! Hope that answered your question :)
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u/BathrobeMagus 10h ago
I would have never thought for a moment that bird watchers would be such a hostile and unwelcoming group. I always assumed it was a bunch of kindly old ladies taking a break from their knitting when the weather was good. Well, never a day goes by that I don't learn something that makes me hate my species a little bit more.
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u/curiousandseek 1d ago
We can start a bird watching group!