It’s a great feeling after days of watching nothing but black-capped chickadees hit your brand new bird feeder and suddenly you see a bright flash of red and your first cardinal stops in for a bite to eat.
You want to share it, of course, but who with?
Where do you find other bird enthusiasts that are as excited as you about bird watching?
Bird forums are the answer to your need to share your experiences and are one of the best, if not the best, bird communities online where you can not only share your experience but actively participate in new ones. They’re not the only bird forum but if you want to find the best, you can’t get any better than BirdForum.
One of the best features of BirdForum is how large the community is.
There is a thread for just about every subject you can think of when it comes to bird watching.
There’s nothing worse than jumping into threads and realizing no one has commented in months. That’s not an issue here.
Table of Contents
What Makes BirdForum Exceptional?
To start off with, it’s not a bland forum.
Typical forums have extremely minimized graphics, with occasional color usage in separating lines that are usually a dull, pale blue.
That’s not the case with BirdForum.
- Well-organized tabs
- Distinct, bird-like feel
- Threads are categorized
- Threads are informative
- Minimized graphical choices that fit
- Ads are minimal
You’ll often find that when you jump on an online forum, it’s very confusing trying to find where to go when you want to focus on a particular subject.
BirdForum has a horizontal tab line that shows you what you need to see and where to go to find the info you want.
The graphics are by no means crazy, but you feel like you are in a bird forum.
Each thread is headed by an orange-colored leaf and each section is labeled according to the threads you will find in that category.
The threads are informative too.
In many forums, you’ll find that the last user comment becomes the label for that thread, so instead of knowing what this particular thread is about, all you know is a portion of someone’s random comment.
BirdForum labels each thread and the comments are within after you click on the link to that thread.
Each subject is also informative, telling you exactly how many threads are found within that particular topic and how many comments there are so far.
Even Better: Ads are also minimal, without any irritating pop-up ads, and—as far as the ones that are on there—they are out of the way so that they don’t diminish from the overall experience.
What Features Will You Find On BirdForum?
There are seven tabs at the top of the home screen, each with its own category with a full drop-down menu for all the available sub-categories.
None of the categories or sub-categories feel like they don’t belong.
- What’s New
- Reviews
- Forums
- Gallery
- Opus
- Blogs
- Members
- ZEISS
What All Of The Categories Are About
What’s New
The What’s New category contains everything that has been recently posted, including pictures added to the gallery, profiles, comments, reviews on bird-watching items, and the latest activities.
Forums
The Forums are pretty self-explanatory and much of that was discussed above.
It’s a very well-put-together forum that’s easy to navigate throughout.
Gallery
The Gallery is full of pictures posted by users and members of the forum.
It’s where you go to share your bird sightings and discuss them with other users and members.
The gallery is completely broken down into groups according to regions and bird types.
For Example: It’s not just a gallery for photography either. You can submit your bird art here as well.
Reviews
The Reviews section is great for those who want to find out more about the tools of bird watching, with binoculars, bird feeders, seeds, and much more.
Real users share their personal reviews amongst the other visitors to the site and they’re free to talk them over.
Opus
The Bird Opus is BirdForum’s very own Wikipedia page on everything bird.
You can find every species here from the most common birds to the most bizarre.
Each bird has a complete definition and breakdown and the user/member community can access and add to each bird’s Opus as much as they want.
Blogs
The Blog section is full of informative articles on birds and wildlife.
It’s updated frequently with a ton of information on the aviary world.
As of this writing, there are 191 pages full of blog articles, so you could spend days reading content on your favorite subject.
Members
The Members section doesn’t exclude other users from viewing the threads that fall under the Member’s category, however, you can’t submit any of your own contributions to any discussions or submit any photographs.
Fortunately, membership is free and you can sign up any time in order to take part in Member’s area discussions.
When you sign up as a member, you can also subscribe to the BirdForum email and newsletters so you can keep up with all of the latest when you’re not actively on the forum.
ZEISS
Lastly, the ZEISS category covers all of the latest information on the world of optics and optoelectronics.
ZEISS is one of the world’s leading technological pioneers in the field of optics, covering everything from binoculars and cameras to nanotechnology.
Under the ZEISS category, you will find their latest innovations, participate in ZEISS observations, and participate in their wide array of conservation projects.
In other words, BirdForum has something for every bird watcher and bird enthusiast out there.
All Things Considered
BirdForum.net is the largest internet bird forum in the world for a reason.
There’s so much to like here and a veritable fountain of information.
The best part is the sheer level of participation and conversations that you can engage in.
There’s quite literally a subject for every thread and a thread for every subject.
Odds are, whatever you want to share, learn, experience, or observe will be something that you can find on BirdForum and the best part is, membership is absolutely free.
