For Birders: Thrill the professional and novice alike with gifts that bring birds closer

Birdwatchers have to be among the easiest people to shop for at holiday time. My friends all want the latest feeders, reference guides, technology and more. And with the popularity of birding skyrocketing, the marketplace is full of products to satisfy every need -- from $5 in bird food to guided birding tours across the globe.

Here are some suggestions for your favorite birder. Many of these items are available at local bird supply stores, including: Wright's Backyard Birding Center, 3901 Country Club Road; Wild Birds Unlimited, 568 Hanes Mall Blvd; and Wild Birds Unlimited, 1589-134 Skeet Club Road, High Point. At these stores, Janet Wright, Diane Bell or the Schmids (Liz or Tom) can help you find a great gift. For indecisive or last-minute shoppers, all three stores have gift cards.

Feeders and food

High on every bird watcher's list is a "squirrel proof" bird feeder. Not all work as advertised, but Brome's Squirrel Buster Plus does a pretty good job (under $75). This hanging feeder has an optional perching ring that closes the feeding ports when a squirrel sits on it. At my house, the squirrels now just share spillage on the ground with chipmunks, sparrows and doves. Tray feeders made from recycled materials and Droll Yankee tube feeders are also popular.

Black oil sunflower seed is the basic feeder staple, but birds likely will appreciate a high quality mix as a change of pace. Bluebirds, mockingbirds and other species love suet, peanut butter and fruit. Liz Schmid said that seed cylinders ($27.99) are selling well. The seeds are compacted into a gel, and the birds must work them loose. This gives you more time to look at them. The Wild Birds Unlimited stores also offer attractive holiday wreaths of compacted seed.

High tech

Who visits when you're not watching? Was that really a purple finch? Wingscapes' BirdCam, also sold as the Audubon BirdCam, lets you find out ($159.95). The BirdCam takes both digital photos and video of birds at your feeder. It uses an infrared sensor to detect activity and mounts easily on a nearby tree or post.

Knowing bird songs and calls helps identify individual species. Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Eastern Region is a popular choice (under $20), but Peterson's and National Geographic offer similar products. Thayer Birding Software's Guide to Birds of North America is a CD-ROM that, in addition to songs and calls, includes information about bird identification and habitat, quizzes, videos and bird-listing software (Standard version, $84.95; Gold Version, $169.95).

Equipped with an iPod, you can take your bird songs out into the field to help you identify what you hear. With sufficient technical savvy, you can load your audio CD with your iTunes software. But birdJam Maker allows you to load the Stokes Eastern and Western CDs or other specialty modules much faster and more cleanly ($59 for Eastern or Western; $99 for both). For an additional cost, birdJam sells a fully loaded iPod or iPod Nano (from $280). This product organizes and formats the songs, removes annoying narration and bird-name announcements, adds photographs and allows you to create playlists and rename species to find them easier.

8,000 birds

Phoebe Snetsinger's quest to see 8,000 species of birds is recounted in Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds, by Olivia Gentile, Bloomsbury USA, 2009 ($26). Plenty of rare birds appear along the way, like the kagu of New Caledonia, the white-necked rockfowl of the Ivory Coast and the harpy eagle of Peru. But Gentile offers more than a travelogue. This is a psychological study of how a wife and mother was driven to risk divorce and leave her family for months at a time, ignore a cancer death sentence, seemingly shrug off a brutal assault and climb in the Himalayas after age 60.

Pop-up birds

Birdscapes by Miyoku Chu, Chronicle Books, 2008 ($60) is a treat for bird-lovers' eyes and ears. The book has seven pop-ups that portray dozens of North American birds in diverse habitats, coupled with stereo recordings of songs and calls from the Macauley Library of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Serious adult birders and children should enjoy both the accurate illustrations and the text about ecosystems.

Bird with experts

Some of my birding companions put guided birding trips at the top of their wish list. In North Carolina, Brian Patteson offers popular day cruises to see offshore seabirds throughout the year ($155 at www.patteson.com). Most trips depart from Hatteras or Wanchese. Simon Thompson's Ventures Birding Tours in Asheville offers one-day trips in the North Carolina mountains ($40), as well as exotic places in Africa, Asia and South America; see www.birdventures.com. Victor Emanuel and Field Guides are other reputable tour companies. Some international destinations, like Trinidad's Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad and Panama's Canopy Lodge and Tower, are easy to reach on your own and provide expert guides when you arrive.

Get a closer look

Binoculars and spotting scopes enhance anyone's birding experience. But a check or gift certificate may be a better option than a direct purchase. You can spend from $40 to $2,000 for binoculars, and customers should spend time selecting a pair they will be happy with. For general birding, I recommend binoculars that are between 8 x 40 and 10 x 50. Take your gift recipient to a local camera or sporting goods stores to try different optics, but look on line as well. At www.eagleoptics.com, you'll find professional advice about magnification, field of view and other selection factors. Eagle offers a wider range of products, good discounts and a liberal return policy. For novice birders, Bushnell and Nikon offer value at the lower end of the price spectrum.

Stocking stuffers

What better stocking stuffer than a card with a gift membership to a local birding or conservation group? Annual membership in the Audubon Society of Forsyth County is only $15; see www.forsythaudubon.org. Piedmont Land Conservancy offers annual gift memberships for $35; see www.piedmontland.org. A trip to the Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville also makes a nice gift ($6-$8). The nonprofit center offers free admission for a donation of as little as $30 and sponsors an adopt-a-bird program; see www.carolinaraptorcenter.org.

■ The Audubon Society of Forsyth County will hold its monthly meeting in the Visitor Center at Historic Bethabara Park, 2147 Bethabara Rd., at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Dr. Katherine Thorington, park naturalist and assistant visiting professor of biology at Salem College, will review a 2009 breeding bird survey at the park.

Bird's-Eye View is a joint column by Ron Morris and Phil Dickinson. Today's column was written by Dickinson. Dickinson is a legal writer. He has been an active birder for 15 years, and is a past president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County and chairs the conservation committee. Morris retired after 24 years as curator at the N.C. Zoo. He has studied birds around the world and is currently the vice president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County. If you have a birding question or story idea, write to Bird's-Eye View in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, N.C. 27101-3159, or send an e-mail to birding@wsjournal.com. Please type "birds" in the subject line.