The Flight Path quiz
What level birder am I?
Eight questions, two minutes, no wrong answers. You'll get your level on the Flight Path and exactly what to work on next.
What the five levels mean
Level 0: The Curious
No gear, no jargon, no commitment. Level 0 is about learning the ten birds you already see, letting a free app do the heavy lifting, and finding out whether this hobby is quietly wonderful (it is). Everything at this level is free.
Level 1: The Backyard Host
Level 1 is about bringing birds to you: one good feeder, the right seed, water, and a fair fight against the squirrels. A well-run yard in the US or Canada can draw 25+ species over a year — no binoculars required, though a first pair starts to make sense here.
Level 2: The Fledgling
Level 2 is where 'a person who likes birds' becomes 'a birder': real binoculars, a local patch you visit on repeat, eBird as your notebook, and the technique that makes both work. The goal is a life list of 100 — reachable in one good spring almost anywhere in the US or Canada.
Level 3: The Field Birder
Level 3 is the deep middle of the hobby: birding by ear, hunting migration by forecast, taking on the groups that scare people (sparrows, warblers, shorebirds), and deciding whether a spotting scope enters your life. The 100-species list becomes 300.
Level 4: The Advanced Birder
Level 4 isn't a finish line — it's a fork. Sound recording, bird photography, county listing, subspecies and molt limits, purple-martin landlording, count compiling, mentoring. Advanced birders pick lanes. The list keeps growing (500+), but the point quietly shifts from collecting birds to contributing.