Great activity for day hiking kids: Birdwatching

Hairy Woodpecker

Generally, exploring and discovery is enough for kids, but sometimes even they can grow bored with that and become restless. Remember that they naturally have shorter attention spans than adults.

Fortunately, there are lots of tried and true activities you can do on the trail that’ll keep kids from getting bored. Among them is birdwatching.

Early morning is the best time to watch birds. You’ll want to bring binoculars for each member of the party so there aren’t antsy kids while waiting to look. Good times to visit a park or nature preserve is when birds may be flying over and stopping over on their annual migrations. A bird identification guide can help you figure out what you’re seeing.

Materials: Binoculars, bird identification guide

Ages: 16 and up

Read more about day hiking with children in my Hikes with Tykes guidebooks.