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Guide: Birding

[ Deutsche Version ]

Content

Birding tables
General
Getting prepared
Instructions
Regions
Skill levels
Habitats
Deeds and rewards

Birding tables

Here are spreadsheets of all the birds present in the game since Update 45 (July 2025). The first is English only, the second German-English.

• ~~ LotRO_Birding_Table.xlsx ~~
• ~~ LotRO_Vogelbeobachtung_Tabelle.xlsx ~~

They resemble Elriel’s table, but include the lovely Sindarin names and their translations for a pleasurable read, and they distinguish between common and uncommon birds.

If you download the tables, you can mark the birds you found in them. I find that very useful, especially since the in-game birding panel isn’t arranged very well.

I have emended obvious errors lest I have to look these instances up time and again to see if they have been corrected in-game. This may become important with regards to the habitats, in case they are relevant for finding birds. More on that below.

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General

This hobby is still in development. Here are some construction sites:

• There are no birds to be seen in the landscape. Maybe it’s not intended either, but it would be so nice if it were!
• The birds you find cannot be used. Fish can be cooked, and so fishing remains useful after maxing out the hobby. With birding, once you have done all the deeds, there’s nothing left to do. I hope for a change in the future - more cosmetics, more furniture? (And more wall-hooks :-))
• In the Birding panel in “Collections”, birds can’t be sorted per region, and their rarity is not displayed. You can get this info from the Deed Log, but the Deed Log is a notorious pain to read. A birding table as well as Vinny’s Birding Log may come in handy here, as long as you don’t switch the client from English to German and vice versa. There is a problem that Vinny is working on.
• Maybe I’m missing something? I cannot see a connection between the birds’ voices and the birds I find.

But oh! so much love has been poured into the abovementioned Sindarin bird-names and their translations! Do browse them for a while in the Birding panel or my tables. The Collections panel is where you also find the stable-masters, your mounts and your cosmetic pets. You can access it with SHIFT+C or the small arrow pointing up at the bottom left of your task bar. Then click the bird symbol. The birds you have already discovered are highlighted.

Lots of love has also gone into the new rewards. See below!

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Getting prepared

Onward! Visit a Hobby Master and learn your new hobby. This is where you find them:

• Brago Puddifoot at Bywater Pool in the Shire
• Estmar Bolger in the Bird and Baby Inn in Michel Delving
• Misty Bolger in Gamwich in Yondershire
• Refkell in the Hall of Kings in Thorin’s Hall
• Henry Oakshott in the Scholar’s Stair Archives in Bree
• Haldúr in the Hall of Fire in the Last Homely House in Rivendell
• Arnfin in der Twenty-first Hall in Moria
• Dúdrad in Edoras
• and nameless Hobby Masters in Lhan Garan (Swanfleet), Trestlebridge (North Downs), the Trader’s Wharf (Evendim/Wildwood), Linnet’s Camp (Wildwood), Galtrev, Dugors, and Lhan Rhos (Dunland), Forlaw (Wildermore), Snowbourn (Sutcrofts), Aldburg (Eastfold), Dol Amroth (Western Gondor), Harlond (Lossarnach), and Furtherholme (Midsummer Festival).

Equip the Basic Birding Kit the Hobby Master gave you. (There aren’t any better Birding kits yet.) Then open your Character panel (C), select "Hobbies” and move the Birding icon to your task bar. You can now use it like any other skill.

Your Birding tool is now your weapon! Stay away from evil things since you will not be able to switch weapons mid-fight!

If you lose your Birding kit, you can get a new one from suppliers like Bonny Thatcher in the Three-farrow Crafting Hall in Bree. It’s listed under “Poles" - oh well.

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Instructions

Now stand anywhere in the open air - a list of Birding regions is below. Then:

• Use your Birding skill.
• As soon as you see white feathers flying around you and your char grabs their spyglass, use the skill again. If you do so in time, green feathers will appear above your head. (DON’T use the skill again when that happens, as some guides have it, or your attempt will fail.)

Pay attention though: During every attempt, the white feathers will appear three times.

• If you react only once, your attempt will fail.
• If you use your skill when no white feathers are flying, your attempt will fail.
• Reacting twice is enough for a successful attempt, but in this case you will only find common birds.
• If you react correctly all three times, you have a chance to find an uncommon, rare, or even rarest bird.

If your attempt doesn’t fail, your char will cheer! (Even in no-birding regions - there, they are obviously just happy for getting the technical stuff right.)

This is how it looks in the wild (hover or click to enlarge):

And this is what a sad failed attempt looks like:

Upon finding a bird, you will get a message in chat telling you which bird you have “acquired”. If you find a bird for the first time, you will see an additional message in chat and all over the screen telling you you have “collected” this bird. This is very useful for keeping track of the birds you have found.

The common and uncommon bird (taken together), the rare birds, and the rarest bird in every region each constitute a deed. Discovering one of the rarest birds is always a self-completing deed.

Sometimes you will see the "Collected"-message twice. In this case you have discovered a bird that can be found in two regions.

The instructions your Hobby Master has given you inform you that after a while, the birds of a region will get to know you and grow shy. This means there is a cooldown. If you stay too long, you will end up by finding the same birds over and over. In this case, move to another region and come back later. (You can read it up here, too). I don’t know how long the cooldown is, so I’ll assume it’s a day, and I will normally do the indicated 20 attempts in a region and then move to another and come back the next day. That said, it’s possible to ignore the cooldown and brute-force your way to find all the birds of a region in one go. It will just probably take much longer.

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Birding regions

Lots of regions, from the starting regions into Mordor, have been opened for birding. Some regions don’t allow it, meaning you can use your Birding Kit there but won’t find any birds. Two of these are Nan Curunír (who would want to go there anyway after the pipeweed has been plundered?) and the Pelennor. Here is a list with some details. It's sorted roughly per character level so you know where you can already safely go. It's not necessary to get yourself in danger, though: All birds can be found directly in settlements near Stable-masters and Milestones.

Note that the Wildwood (Bree-land), the Pelennor (Anórien), North Ithilien, and the Cape of Belfalas don’t accommodate Birding. Also, you can find Anórien birds in Minas Tirith (After-battle), but not in Midsummer Minas Tirith.
Some regions in King’s Gondor seem to be off. One instance is Lossarnach birds, which don’t show up in Lossarnach but instead in Ringló Vale. (In pre-battle Gondor, everything is normal.)

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Skill levels

Birding has 200 skill levels so far, and there is no cap for levels per day (as there is in Fishing). So in theory, you can max the hobby out in one single session.

Your skill level determines which birds you can find:

In (almost) every region, there are five common birds, seven uncommon birds , three rare birds, and one rarest bird. (The Eastfold is an exception with four common and four rare birds and a shared rare bird.)
Two to four of the common birds in a region can also be found in another region. (Exception: Agarnaith, which so far doesn’t share any birds with another region.)

• In the lower regions I found uncommon birds from skill level 10, rare birds from level 40, and rarest birds from level 60.
• In Rohan, I could discover uncommon birds from skill level 120, rare birds from level 140, and rarest birds from level 160.

This is my experience with two birding chars - has someone found rarer birds earlier?

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Habitats

Some players believe that birds show up more readily if you look for them in their appropriate “habitats”, which are listed in the Collections panel and in the Birding tables. My own experience does not support this. I have found all birds in settlements, most of the time directly near the Stable-master or the Milestone, with or without a matching habitat. Also, there are over 40 different habitats (not even counting synonyms like “marsh” and “bog”). I can’t imagine that they have all been incorporated into the code controlling the odds of finding a certain bird, and in all 33 active birding regions. Sometimes a bird couldn’t even appear in its natural habitat if it wanted to. Looking at you, Fell-crow of the Mirkwood, which lives on Farmland.

Here I found the Brandywarbler, the rarest bird of Bree-land, who lives in Moors and Scrub. And yet (no exception at all):

So you see, I’m not convinced that habitat is a thing (yet). If a bird won’t show up, there can be various reasons, apart from Fortuna’s fickleness. Check the following:

• Is your skill-level high enough? You need level 60 in Eriador and possibly 160 in Rohan and above to find rarest birds.
• Is the region on cooldown? (It will be after 20 attempts.) If you're seeing the same birds over and over, go somewhere else for a while and return later.
• Are you wearing good old Erebrandir's Horseshoe? ;-) (I’m sure it doesn’t help here, but no less sure to wear it always, everywhere, come what may!)

Yet in case you swear by the importance of habitats, here are some locations where rarer birds have been spotted, as well as discussions on the matter:

• https://forums.lotro.com/index.php?threads/uncommon-and-rare-bird-habitat-locations.12748/
• https://forums.lotro.com/index.php?threads/birding-stronger-role-for-habitats.13070/

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Deeds and rewards

For reaching higher skill levels, you get the following rewards (as of July 2025):

Level

Title

Portrait frame

Image

10

Bird-brained

A Little Bird Frame

30

Fair Fowler

A Brace of Birds Frame

50

Unwavering Warbler

A Dulcet Trio Frame

70

Wing-spotter

A Birder’s Delight Frame

100

Bird-tamer

A Flock of Feathered Friends Frame

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For finding all birds of a region, you are rewarded with Emotes, Cosmetics, and Housing items.

In the Shire, you get the lovely emote /birdinhand, which lets you proudly present a small songbird and a bird of prey, alternately:

In some other regions, you receive "Birding garments”. Most of it is the same robe over and over, in different colours. Moreover, the model is the old Craftsman’s Robe you can buy for 3 silver from vendors in the starting regions. I was a bit disappointed at first, but have come to like it more and more. In fact, the blue-and-gold one has become Bjarnar’s everyday outfit, and he often gets complimented on it!

For discovering all the birds of Eriador, you are rewarded with the Birder’s Hat:

and the title “the All-feather”.

For discovering all the birds of Rohan and the Great River, you receive the title “The Unbirdened”.

For discovering all the rarest birds of Gondor and Mordor, you get the title “Sentinel of Song”.

For completing Anórien and Agarnaith, you are rewarded with Baubles. They are “bound to account”, so you can hand them to another char if you want.

The animations are really pretty - your char will even smile happily at the bird in their hand!

For finding all the birds of Anórien, you get the Bauble “Handful of Bird Feed” (click for better resolution). Three little birds will flutter towards you, pick some corns and fly away. Their colours can vary.

The cooldown of this bauble only activates after the action has ended. If you keep using the bauble at short intervals, you can attract a small flock of birds. Look at the one zoning in from above :-)

For finding all the birds of Agarnaith, you get the Bauble “Bird in the Hand”. You hold out your hand with some birdseed in it, and a small bird arrives and picks it up.

For discovering all the birds of the Wastes, Ithilien, and Belfalas, you receive beautiful paintings for your home:

1. Hand-sketched Painting of a Peticular (sic) Perching: reward for 'All the Birds of the Wastes'
2. Hand-sketched Painting of Curious Corvids: reward for 'All the Birds of Ithilien'
3. Hand-sketched Painting of Meticulous Mallards: reward for 'All the Birds of Belfalas'

Even if the hobby is still in development, I find it lovely and relaxing. Enjoy and spread the love!

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