For me, one of the big plusses of
birding is its practicality. No matter what your situation or your location, there is always some
birding available and, as much as I tend to move about, this is comforting. Out in the wide open spaces of the
west, we used to do most of our birding with vehicles, traveling from marsh to marsh and covering a lot of distance in a day. We typically used
spotting scopes, as much, if not more than binoculars. Here in the
east, I do all my birding from a bicycle and most of it is in forest cover, so a
binocular is my primary birding tool. The two different approaches to birding could not be more different, but I am glad I am not paying for gasoline, these days. Bicycle birding is definitely healthier, too.