Birding or wildlife observation while climbing

I'm wondering if any of you do any birding or wildlife observation while you are climbing. For birders like myself the opportunity to hang out where the birds live opens up a lot of possibilities for quality observation time.

For example this weekend I was climbing in a red oak in northwestern Connecticut. The trees in the surrounding forest are in full flower (pollen hell) with the leaves barely out. I found a Ruby-throated Hummingbird foraging in the canopy. I think it was chasing insects that were attracted to the birch catkins, oak tassels and other tree flowers. It would have been difficult to notice this tiny bird from the ground.
-moss

I'm always doing wildlife watching from on high. I've seen bird species that won't come to a feeder and apparently haven't learned to be afraid of a human sitting still in a tree. I've done some promoting of RTC to birders and wildlife photographers because of this.

Likewise, I have occasionally sat quietly and watched deer and elk stroll directly underneath me. The coyotes are pretty good at spotting me though.

I often visit an oak tree that is situated in a small glade by a stream. Deer will graze at the base of the tree if I am quiet. Nearby is a beaver dam but I have yet to see a beaver.

In Nebraska at the rendevous I got to spend my first night in a treeboat about 35 feet up in a burr oak. Early in the morning, something flew right through the tree and passed inches above my face. It could not have known I was there. I think it was a large blackbird of some sort.

I too have seen hummingbirds feeding on something. Not sure what because no flowers were apparent. And one time, I sat trans-fixed as a squirrel gnawed on an Osage Orange fruit maybe 10 feet away from me.

One day, I saw two tiny hummingbirds flirting with eachother. They danced around the entire live oak I was in.

Then an hour later I was at the tippy top of the tree taking a GPS reading, I heard the screech of a hawk. I looked up and saw a hawk diving right at me. Luckily, it wasn't hungry for me, but for some small rodent running through the ravine I was climbing in. It swooped down just as it got past my tree and picked up what looked like a rat. That hawk was hauling some serious @$$!!!!!

love
nick

Great stuff, climbing in trees definitely helps us connect with nature in more ways than one. It figures that the coyotes reported by Ponderosa are the only ones that look up, you can't outsmart the original tricksters very easily.
-moss

Cat calls make people look up. Dog barking does NOT make people look up (dogs don’t climb trees). The correct number of hoots brings owls to my tree in the wee hours. Pishing sounds brings wrens and other birds to my treetop perch.