‘Best hobby ever’: Glen Ellyn birdman shares joys of birding with new book

Jeff Reiter has a nemesis — or three — on his mind.

He has come tantalizingly close to the mangrove cuckoo down in Florida. Closer to home, the king rail and purple sandpiper would rate as “lifers.”

Reiter has endeared the occasional feeder watcher to the lingo, etiquette and “wonderfully addictive” joys of birding through his newspaper columns. He began writing for the Daily Herald in 2008, like, yes, a ruddy duck to water. Reiter has compiled his favorites in a new, nine-part book, “The Best of Words on Birds.”

As Bob Ross would say “it’s your world” in his painting tutorials, Reiter also advocates a whatever-floats-your-boat approach to birding. In his element, Reiter might have a coffee in one hand, a garden hose in the other and binoculars around his neck. Like that time green herons visited his yard in Glen Ellyn. The funnier columns — he’s got dad jokes — are about the personal triumphs or the flocks of birders on a “backyard celebrity” stakeout.

“I do think it's the best hobby ever, because there’s so many ways to do it,” Reiter said.

Over the years, he’s written about “such a diversity of topics,” said Diann Bilderback, a two-time past president of the DuPage Birding Club and current president of the Bird Conservation Network.

Reiter shares the adventure of birding, she said, the thrill of the chase. How to get started if you want to venture outside your backyard. The binoculars and the tools that you need to really study birds. What to expect in the different seasons. Traveling for birding.

Bilderback considers Reiter an “important evangelist” in the Chicago region for the hobby.

“There were always birders who were out there, really seriously looking for birds, but those numbers have grown dramatically in 30 years, and the pandemic gave us a big boost,” she said. “But I think Jeff’s column has been a vanguard of the sport of birding, and I think he’s helped a lot of people connect with it.”

Becoming a serious birder

Reiter was “kind of a nature kid” in his native Ohio. But it wasn’t until he spotted and put a name to a hooded warbler during a 1994 vacation to South Carolina that Reiter was hooked.

That’s what birders call a “spark bird.” The warbler “brought me back to what I had enjoyed much earlier in life, and then I got really serious about birding for the first time,” Reiter said.

He joined the DuPage Birding Club upon moving to Glen Ellyn. Birders would then call a hotline to listen to a recording about where interesting or rare birds had been seen.

Fast forward about 25 years, and “you just go on one of the apps like Discord or eBird, and you know about those sightings right away,” Reiter said.

He credits Merlin, Cornell’s free bird ID app, for helping to popularize the hobby. Reiter also makes a case for going screen-free in the field and practicing the art of birding by ear.

“There’s less incentive now to learn the bird songs and the bird calls because Merlin does it for you,” he said. “And the other side of me, I'm still a little bit old school, and I'm less inclined to draw my phone out of my pocket, as some birders.”

But Reiter writes for — and celebrates — the broad spectrum of birders. He’s still motivated by the possibility of bringing more people into the hobby.

“If my column has done anything, I hope that it's introduced more people to birds and birding, because it’s almost a fact that the more you bird, the deeper you get into the hobby, the more you care about conservation and protecting the birds,” Reiter said.

Reiter has nurtured the interest that “people naturally have in the birds they’re seeing in their backyard,” Bilderback said.

Reiter devotes a full section of the book to “yard work.” Fill feeders with black-oil sunflower seed, he advises. Maybe add some suet to the menu. With plenty of migrating birds in October and November, keep the bird bath going.

“Keep your hummingbird feeder out until at least the end of October,” he said.

Around late April, dish out the grape jelly for a flash of orange and black: Baltimore orioles.

‘One bird at a time’

Another section of the book explores birding destinations around the Midwest and beyond. After a 15-year drought, Reiter found an old nemesis, the worm-eating warbler, during the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival.

“I'd seen a worm-eater or ‘wormie’ once before, in 2002. Unfortunately, it was dead, the victim of a building strike in downtown Chicago. Holding that bird, I'll admit to briefly considering mouth-to-beak resuscitation. The Field Museum gladly added the specimen to its collection,” he wrote in a 2017 column also in the book.

Reiter’s yard list is now up to 124 species. His life list hit a milestone — No. 600 — with a dusky flycatcher in Colorado. Lists, he says, are optional, too. Again, whatever gets you locked into the hobby.

“Now that I'm retired, it's not a super high priority to grow my life list, but it will naturally start to grow faster,” said Reiter, who led birding walks around Cantigny, his longtime workplace.

“I want to go there badly,” he says of a trip to Costa Rica, especially to put eyes on a marvelously resplendent quetzal. But a sticker on his car reads, “One bird at a time.”

“I just thought, take it easy. Don't go crazy. There's no rush to see 1,000 different kinds of birds. Just enjoy them along the way and take your time,” he said of his philosophy in retirement.

Reiter had no idea that the warbler sighting all those years ago “would lead to this.” He was even surprised, as a fledgling columnist, he could be writing about birds.

Turns out the “Words” came easily.

“Now it's a huge part of the hobby for me … coming up with stories and writing about birds and birders and birding,” he said. “It's become a real important part of my life, and to have a book is just the capper.”

Author events

Jeff Reiter’s “The Best of Words on Birds” is available through Eckhartz Press. He’s set to appear at Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook for a book event at 11 a.m. Jan. 15. He also hopes to speak at several libraries in early 2026.