Beginning Birding, Mindfulness, Photography

Books for Birding Adventures

Purchase Lessons from a Birdbrain books directly from the author or from Amazon. Kindle and Apple eBooks are also available.

Books about Ohio Birds

These books make a great gift for residents of Ohio and the Midwest! Featuring 21 birds found in each season along with “Birdbrain Lessons.” All seasons available directly from the author with a “shop” feature on the website. Also available on Amazon and Apple, including eBooks.

Mindful Birding book cover

Mindful Birding: A Beginner’s Guide

NEW and available now for purchase! Mindful Birding: A Beginner’s Guide features birds of Seattle, Washington. It’s the first of its kind—a “you choose” book.

You choose! books

Laura will write a book or books on your home area or your favorite bird or bird species. Use the contact form if interested!

New! Updated Belize Book

This lovely Crimson-collared Tanager is featured along with 20 other birds in the SECOND EDITION! Paperback and eBook versions NOW AVAILABLE.

Hats off and thanks to Renée Remlinger-Tee for her amazing and tireless design efforts along with my mom, Gail Thornhill for re-editing the book.

HUGE THANKS TO our friends, Kate and Robert Watts at Three By the Sea for hosting wonderful trips. Their guest house is officially open and amazing, check it out! threebytheseabz.com

photo of Laura McDermott

Author

Laura McDermott

Laura published her first book, Lessons from a Birdbrain: Summer, Ohio in November, 2020. She is a beginning birder, photographer and student of mindfulness in her free time. Check out updates on Tiktok, Insta, and even LinkedIn for news!


Birdbrain Blog

TikTok logo @LauraBird57

Trumpeter Swans Take Off

Synchronized swan swim team? Trumpeter Swans bob their heads for a synchronized take off. This mesmerizing video has gone viral! Watch on TikTok.

Trumpeter Swans
Click image to watch on TikTok

Birding Applications Tip

eBird has a cool feature to look at ‘hotspots’. I use the feature to prepare to bird in a new location. I knew before I went to Seattle, for example, some of the gulls that would be new to me, like this one.

Glaucous-winged Gull considers its reflection

Photography Tip

YouTube offers great videos on a wide variety of cameras. I’ve been watching them in small chunks so I can try a new method, such as how to get better focus and then giving it a go for a few days before I move on. The link below is for my current camera, as an example. Just search for yours and I hope you find helpful stuff.

Nicely focused bird with blurred background

Lights Out – Spring Migration

A group of dedicated volunteers is back on the streets this spring. Lights Out team members gather data to support efforts toward reducing lights in large cities to minimize bird collisions during migration Check out the Columbus Lights Out website for more details. Downtown Columbus is lovely at 6am!

“Every spring and fall, millions of birds migrate through Ohio on their way between their breeding and overwintering grounds. Most species of songbirds migrate at night, and lights on tall buildings or aimed at the sky can disorient them and draw them into buildings. This causes many birds…to strike windows or circle buildings until they fall from exhaustion. A recent study estimated that as many as 1 billion birds die each year in the United States from building collisions.”

Ohio Lights Out
Lights Out Columbus

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