Learn about binoculars and field guides as well as birding apps and other helpful tools.

Birding is popular because it’s easy to get started, and it offers increasingly greater rewards the more you learn. It’s also an inexpensive hobby — a field guide and pair of binoculars are all you need.
Read on for tips on how to get started identifying Missouri's birds around your home or out in the field. This section provides information on:
Learn about binoculars and field guides as well as birding apps and other helpful tools.
Learn key features that will help you tell bird species apart.
Upload and store your bird sightings in this online database and view sightings of other birders around the world.
The Great Missouri Birding Trail was created to show birders the best places to find birds around the state.
These photos represent a portion of a collection of photos taken by Paul Moffett. Over the past eight years, Paul has turned this hobby into a passion and has photographed birds along twenty miles of the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers through all the seasons of the year. This includes the areas along Columbia Bottom Conservation Area and the Audubon Center at Riverlands. Paul has also observed and photographed birds at Horseshoe Lake, throughout Calhoun County, and between Alton and Grafton in Illinois.
Paul has diligently set out almost daily with his camera to record the raptors, shore birds, waterfowl, and songbirds that migrate through this diverse habitat, along with those that make the confluence their home.
Missouri's winter eagle watching is spectacular. Find places to view eagles on your own, or join us at some of the many Eagle Days events scheduled around the state.