Many people know their home state's important birding locations.  Some areas, like Cape May, are world-famous and heavily trafficked. Others such as Forsythe N.W.R. near Atlantic City and John Heinz Refuge in Philadelphia, PA, are are regionally renowned.  Still other sites may be known only for a few specialties or at certain seasons.  

But birds are everywhere, and are mostly oblivious to our artificial boundaries.  There are always locations that never make the list of must-visit sites, yet offer birding as good as many that do.  And one of them could make an ideal "local patch" for you!  

What's a "local patch"?  It's a location, often on the small side, that is close to you and easy to stop at for spur-of-the-moment birding.  A place most other birders either don't know, or by-pass on the way to a premier birding hotspot.  I have enjoyed several "local patches" since I started birding. Some of those sites remain relatively unchanged, while others have fallen to development. Those habitat losses have been partly balanced by formerly private locations having become accessible parkland, but known and birded only by the locals. 

There are many reasons to bird a local patch.  We already mentioned that it has to be close and convenient.  So you needn't go far, and you can get there often.  And once in while even the most sociable among us enjoys a solitary walk; there's nothing better to clear and focus the mind!  It's good for your health.  Another important reason is that you can record data missed by others. 

Your yard might be your default local patch.  If you landscape with native plants, add a water source and feeders, the birds will respond!  My early birding years began in my parent's suburban yard, where my yard list reached 65 species.  In coastal or montane areas, greater habitat variety will offer a chance for higher avian diversity as well.  During seven years living in Goshen, Cape May County, NJ, our larger yard and significant local bird movements yielded 130 species.  We've now downsized, landscaped with nearly thirty species of native wildflowers, shrubs and trees (few endeavors give more satisfaction), and installed bird baths and feeders. In less than four years bare dirt has been transformed into a small yard filled with flowers, fruit, butterflies and birds. We've recorded almost 100 species in or from a 1/10th acre lot, and when we include a pond 100 yards away it's 134 species.  

If you live in a city or an apartment, or just prefer to stretch your legs, then a town or county park, quiet back road, or unfrequented section of a wildlife area might be the perfect local patch for you. The primary requirement is that it be nearby or on the way to work, so you can stop there often. Some days you may only have a few minutes for birding. 

Patch birding does NOT mean second-rate birding!  If you think "getting over 100 species in a yard, that's just Cape May", you'd be wrong.  A decidedly suburban yard in an urban, North Jersey non-coastal location with a single observer reported 116 species in 2020!  Given migration routes through the Garden State, there could be thousands of such yards.  I took a cursory look at the eBird map of New Jersey and found over 300 locations which have cumulative lists of more than 100 species.  A few of those are premier birding spots, but most are not.  I have lived in New Jersey my whole life, started birding 50 years ago this spring, and have a list for each of New Jersey's 21 counties, yet I've never been to two-thirds of those places!  A subset of the aforementioned 300 spots are the more than 100 little known locations which recorded over 100 species last year.  These run the gamut from municipal and county parks, to back roads, to parking lot and office-building-dominated corporate parks.  Not everyone eBirds, and even those who do, do not submit a list for very walk.  So the true number of 100+ species locations is likely much higher. 

Is there any real value in patch birding? The answer is a resounding "yes"!  In the past, most "local patch" reports never entered the written record; a backyard might do so only a few times a decade if it hosted a rarity. And such records were almost unsearchable and scattered across hundreds of publications.
 

But with the increasing use of eBird, data from thousands of local patches is immediately available to researchers, vastly expanding the data collection landscape.  This is leading to finer scale mapping of breeding and wintering ranges, and insights into migration routes and timing.  And who knows what you might discover?  New nesting populations of a rare or declining species? Several recent range expansions into New Jersey, such as White Ibis and Mississippi Kite from the south, or Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Merlin from the north, are unlikely to be the last!      

At the very least, you'll spend a little more time with nature, perhaps every week. Go for it!