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5 Best Birding Journals

When you’re out birding, it is incredibly fulfilling to write down any notes, sketches, or discoveries that you make along the way. You might be able to do this via some sort of smartphone app, but there’s something so personal about keeping a real live journal with a pen. A real life journal just feels so much more authentic and true to nature, so to speak. In this article, we list the 5 best birding journals we’ve found for tracking your journey.

bird writing journal by sohospark

1. Bird Writing Journal by SohoSpark

Boasts an extremely sleek leather bound cover, complete with penholder loops and standard journal line spacing filling out the pages. Very simplistic in its design, but extremely functional and it looks fantastic. Cover feels great to the touch and makes your discoveries seem all the more official. Of the 5 of our best birding journals listed here in this article, this is the one we tend to like the most.

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Details

  • Easy to carry: 6×8.75 in. length and width, thickness is around 0.75in
  • Cruelty free: made from 100% vegan leather
  • Silky smooth: leather cover is thick and padded, comes with a silky colorful bookmark
Pros
Feels great to the touch
Looks fantastic
Has penholders, very portable
Cons
Fairly barebones journal

the sibley birder's life list and dictionary

2. The Sibley Birder’s Life List and Dictionary

This is a guided diary book that lists the 923 birds within North America and allows you to check off your discoveries along with notes like where you saw the bird, and what time you saw it. There’s also a section for recording your lifers, or for recording miscellaneous entries for personal discoveries that you may not be able to find in the aforementioned list of 923 birds.

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Details

  • Extremely in depth: it contains 923 different species, and space for you to record your notes for each sighting
  • Pleasant color scheme: interior pages contain a pleasant woodsy color scheme to match the theme of the book
  • Easy categorization: birds are categorized, making it easy for you to find patterns for your favorite locations
Pros
Very in depth
Nice feel when writing in
Interior pages look great
Cons
Exterior cover leaves a little to be desired

Birder's Life List Journal

3. Birder’s Life List Journal

Birder’s Life List & Journal is a fantastic birding journal published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, whom are well known for their absolutely wonderful eBird.org resource. It comes packed with tons of beautiful illustrations to aid you in identifying various birds in your birding expeditions, as well as leaving plenty of room for your own notes. It was a no brainer to include this wonderful book in our list of the 5 best birding journals the web has to offer.

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Details

  • Durable: Has a durable flexbind cover
  • Very in depth: Covers all known species within the continental United States and Hawaii, as well as some accidental species
Pros
Illustrations are gorgeous
Durable cover
Very structured
Cons
Lacking individual illustrations of each bird

North America Bird Checklist and Birding Journal

4. North America Bird Checklist and Birding Journal

The North America Bird Checklist & Birding Journal by Mind Friendly Books is a solid addition to any birder’s library and is a worthy competitor in the journal space. It comes full of detail and is very portable.

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Details

  • Very in depth: Contains details about more than 2,340 different bird species
  • Navigation: Predictable taxonomic ordering for species for ease of access and reading
Pros
Features a lot of information for each species
Easy to navigate
Cons
Fairly plain in appearance; lacks in character

The Birder - Bird Watching Log, Notebook and Journal: The perfect book for Birders and Bird Watchers

5. The Birder – Bird Watching Log, Notebook and Journal

The Birder has an absolutely beautiful water painted cover, and really makes this journal something special. It’s about 6” wide and 9” in height, making it fairly portable to carry around while still giving you plenty of space to journal your discoveries. This one is one of our favorites along with the Bird Watching Journal by SohoSpark listed at #1.

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Details

  • Durable: Matte cover
  • Straightforward: Contains 120 pages, with room for about 58 separate bird watching days
  • Thoughtful layout: Left side pages dedicated to sketches and drawings, right sided pages dedicated to prompted questions for guided journaling
Pros
Matte cover feels great, and the art looks fantastic
Prompted journal styling great for beginners, helps with keeping birding expeditions structured
Cons
Feels a bit “small”. 58 separate birding occasions come at you fast, would prefer to have a journal that is slightly longer in length.

Conclusion

These are the 5 best birding journals we’ve found so far on our birdwatching journey. If you feel that we are leaving an excellent one out, please comment below and let us know! We keep our tables up to date with the latest and greatest.

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