Great gift ideas from Bob Confer,
Trying to figure out what to get an outdoors enthusiast for Christmas can be a daunting task, especially if the shopper really isn’t an outdoorsy person. So, for the past few years, this column has offered some shopping ideas to the friends and families of nature lovers. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just a few days away, it’s as good a time as any to offer my suggestions.
Trail camera
It’s long been a stereotype in outdoors circles – one perpetuated by manufacturers’ and outfitters’ advertising campaigns — that trail cameras (also known as “game cameras”) are solely for hunters who use the devices to track deer movement on their favorite hunting grounds.
That overlooks the value and fun that a trail camera can bring non-hunters. EVERY nature lover should have a trail camera (or two or three) because it gives some great insight into not only animal movements but also the very presence of animals that you never thought could be found in your yard or woods.
Trail cameras record what happens under two scenarios: One, at night, which is when an entirely different world of nature takes place and, two, when you are not around, which tends to give wildlife carte blanche to move about freely.
You will be amazed at what they show. My trail cameras in the Allegany County have photographed everything from bears and coyotes to porcupines and fishers to owls and hawks.
They are also great for detective work: If you have pests tearing up your yard or deer shredding your trees in the fall, set up a camera to see what’s causing the ruckus.
There are literally hundreds of trail cameras to choose from on the market. Almost all do the same thing nowadays: they take photos or videos — triggered by motion detectors — that are put on SD cards that you can then transfer to your home computer. Some extravagant versions will broadcast to the internet while others will film Hollywood-quality footage. Costs vary, but with today’s technology, even the least expensive (around $30 a camera) can do a great job, too.
A Field Guide to Bird Songs
For about $20, you could get “A Field Guide to Bird Songs: Eastern and Central North America”.
This is not really a field guide per se, but rather a CD put out by Peterson Field Guides. It does what bird books can’t – it allows you to hear actual recordings of birds, because that is a critical tool in finding and identifying birds in the field.
The disc features the songs of 267 species of birds found east of the Rockies. It features all birds, not just songbirds. It is perfect for the beginner and the experienced birder alike. I keep a copy in my truck and listen to it regularly to keep my birding skills at a high level.
Books by Gerry Rising
The late Gerry Rising was an impressive naturalist, a great writer, and one of the inspirations for my nature columns. For 25 years he wrote the Nature Watch column for the Buffalo News. There were likely countless readers like me who, when opening the Sunday news, immediately turned to the science page and Gerry’s column. That was something I did religiously through high school, college, and much of my adult life.
A half dozen years ago Gerry collected and published some of his very best columns. Each tome has 100 of his articles about local birds, with ornithology being Gerry’s most passionate and popular work. If you go to Amazon.com and enter “Gerry Rising” in the search function you will find “Birder’s Break” and “Birds and Birdwatchers” at $12.95 each, which is a steal for the quality of content.
Nature lovers will enjoy how Gerry makes our avian friends, from the rare to the abundant, approachable and understandable to the layperson. Making it especially relatable to locals is that his columns were all set in Western New York.