Equipment
The Equipment
Let's start with the easiest part of
Birdwatching, which is deciding what equipment you need. There are only
two absolute essentials: a pair of binoculars and a field guide. Pretty
simple right? This is one more reason to like Birdwatching - it is
inexpensive. In fact, birding is one of the least expensive hobbies a
person can undertake. There are no monthly dues, no rackets to string, no
nets to tie up, no golf clubs to buy, no green fees to pay or balls to
lose. Binoculars of adequate quality run about sixty dollars, a good field
guide is around twenty dollars, and with these supplies you are well on
your way.
Binoculars
Binoculars are a birder's eyes on the world,
and they can greatly affect the quality of a bird outing. Good binoculars
make for good birding, while bad binoculars can lead to missed birds and
severe headaches induced by blurred images, double vision, and eye strain.
Binoculars come in many different shapes and
forms and carry such descriptions as "roof prism," "close focus," "armor
coated," etc. At the outset, you don't need to spend too much time
deciphering this arcane lexicon. If you really get hooked on Birdwatching,
you can learn more about binoculars later and trade in for a better pair.
There are a few simple rules to consider and
questions to ask when purchasing your first pair of binoculars.
-
Make sure the power (or magnification) is
at least 7-power. The power is the first number given in the numerical
notation that describes binoculars. For example, a "7 X 35" pair of
"glasses" will make objects appear as if they are seven times as close as
they actually are. Seven-power binoculars are about the minimum needed to
see birds well. Binoculars 10-power or stronger can be difficult for some
birders to hold steady.
-
Make sure that the second number ("35"
for a "7 X 35" pair of glasses) is at least five times as large as the
power (e.g., "7 X 35," "8 X 40," etc.). This second number describes
the diameter, in millimeters, of the large lens that faces the object of
interest - the "objective" lens. The larger this lens is, the greater the
amount of light the binoculars gather and thus the easier it will be to
see characteristics in dim light or on a dull-colored bird.
-
Are the binoculars too heavy for you to
carry and use for at least two hours straight? Don't end up with a
hunchback because your binoculars act like a yoke.
-
Can you flex the barrels of the
binoculars fairly easily? To test to see if they are too flexible,
spread the barrels out as far as possible and then hold onto only one of
the barrels. Does the free barrel slip or fall from the spread position?
It shouldn't.
-
When held a foot away, do the large
objective lenses reflect a bluish or purplish tinge? If they do, the
lenses are color-coated. This coating reduces internal glare in the
binoculars and increases the amount of light that actually comes to your
eyes. Check lenses to make sure the coatings are free of any blotches or
scrapes.
-
Can you bring the barrels of the
binoculars close enough together so that the image you see merges into a
single, clear image within a single, perfect circle? If the image
isn't singular or clear, the binoculars may be out of alignment or the
eyepieces may not come close enough together to accommodate your eyes.
These two problems may lead to eye strain and severe headaches.
-
Do you wear prescription eyeglasses?
If you do, your binoculars should have rubber eye cups that fold back.
This allows you to put your eyeglasses up closer to the eyepieces of your
binoculars and gives you a much larger field of view.
-
Do the binoculars produce a clear image
of an object only 20 feet away? Some binoculars do not focus on
objects this close, so you may miss the sparrow or warbler that skulks in
a nearby bush.
-
Look at a sign with large lettering. Do
the letters close to the edge of the field of view appear as precise and
well-formed as the letters in the center of the field of view? Image
distortion towards the edge of binoculars is common in bad binoculars -
like looking through a fish-eye lens. Look for a pair that has minimal
distortion.
-
When you focus on a license plate or
small sign two blocks away, are the letters and numbers
clear?
Practicing with your new
binoculars
Before using your binoculars, it is important
to adjust them so they compensate for the differing strengths of your two
eyes. Take a lens cap and cover up the right objective lens with it. Then
look through the left lens and focus on an object 30 feet away using the
main focusing knob located between the two barrels of your binoculars.
Once you have focused on the object, move the lens cap from the right lens
to the left lens. Look through the right lens at the same object (but
don't touch the main focusing wheel!) If the image you see is not as clear
as it looked through the left lens, adjust it using the focusing ring
attached to the right eyepiece of your binoculars. Take note of where you
have set the focus on the right eyepiece. Now your binoculars are adjusted
to your eyes and ready for action.
Next, spend some time developing the hand-eye
coordination you'll need to spot birds quickly. Most Birdwatching is
definitely not like watching football. With Birdwatching there's much more
action - everything is happening at 1/100 the scale and moves 100 times as
quickly over an unlimited expanse of space. It takes time for beginning
birders to get the knack of spotting birds with their binoculars. The
secret is to learn to spot a bird with the naked eye and then lift the
binoculars up to your eyes without ever taking your eyes off the bird.
I usually recommend that the fledgling birder
find a comfortable spot at a local park and spend time just practicing
spotting objects with their binoculars. Initially, set the focus lever on
the binoculars so that an object approximately 30 feet away is in clear
view. This is a good average distance from which you can learn to focus
the binoculars in and out. Next, begin to look for birds with your naked
eyes and then find them with your binoculars. Simply follow the bird
around for a while, lowering and lifting your binoculars every so often.
Don't worry about identifying birds yet. Just watch what they are doing.
Soon, you'll be able to spot and focus like a pro.
Field Guides
There has been a veritable explosion in the
number of field guides published about birds over the last few years.
Until the late 1960s, the guide most widely used was Roger Tory Peterson's
original The Birds of Eastern North America, the first field guide
of its kind produced. This book literally made Birdwatching a popular
activity by making accurate identifications of birds possible. Today,
however, there are specific field guides available for certain regions of
the country (Texas even has its own field guide) as well as for specific
groups of birds, such as hawks, gulls, shorebirds, ducks, and others.
These specialized books may eventually make their way into the library of
a birding enthusiast. Still, beginners need only consider the
comprehensive guides when choosing their first field guide.
When purchasing your first guide, it is best
to start with one that displays paintings of birds rather than
photographs. Paintings allow artists to include all distinguishing
features (called "field marks") that help to identify a bird in each
illustration. Often, photographs do not show all these marks due to
lighting or positioning of the bird. Photographic guides can be a valuable
companion reference, however, especially when studying the details of a
bird's shape. Of the many comprehensive guides available, here are four of
the most popular.
A Field
Guide to the Birds. Eastern and Central North
America. 4th Edition, 1980. Roger Tory Peterson
The "Peterson guide" offers a clarity and
consistency hard to find elsewhere. This is because all paintings in the
guide were drawn by Roger Tory Peterson rather than several different
artists as in other guides. In addition, the guide is limited to birds
found in the central and eastern United States, which means Floridians do
not have to sort through birds that do not occur here very often. Peterson
also uses a simple, effective method of highlighting the field marks of
different birds by using arrows to point to them. These simple, visual
indications of key features help save valuable identification time in the
field. One drawback of this field guide is that range maps describing
where each species of bird occurs are grouped at the back, rather than
placing each map beside the bird's picture and description. Also, the
American Ornithologists' Union, which determines the classification of all
North American birds, has changed the common names of a number of birds
since this guide's 1980 publication. This may confuse beginners when they
compare this guide to more recently published guides.
Stokes Field
Guide to Birds. Eastern Region. 1st Edition, 1996. Donald and Lillian
Stokes
The Stokes guide is among the most popular
of the photographic guides. This guide is well organized with a color tab
index to bird families. It also contains a large number of quality photos,
especially for its small size. Text contains clear descriptions on how to
identify each bird plus interesting life history information.
All the Birds of
North America. 1st Edition, 1997. The American Bird
Conservancy
This guide is a relative newcomer compared
to the other illustrated guides discussed here. Its high quality paintings
cover virtually all birds found in the U.S. and Canada. If you travel out
west this can be a benefit - you won't have to purchase another field
guide. This guide also includes a number of essays covering bird behavior
that beginners might find interesting. One drawback of this guide is that
some people find it is organized in a confusing way. It is not arranged
strictly in "phylogenetic" order like most other guides (discussed later
in this booklet). This makes finding birds more difficult for those used
to traditional field guide organization.
Field Guide to
the Birds of North America. 3rd Edition, 1999. The National Geographic
Society
This popular field guide is currently the
most recently revised guide and includes the current common names of all
North American bird species. The National Geographic guide also contains
more illustrations and gives better descriptions of the variation that
certain birds exhibit in their color patterning. For example, red-
shouldered hawks in Florida generally are a lighter color than
red-shouldered hawks in other parts of the country. Most field guides
mention this, but pictures in the National Geographic guide actually show
this type of variation. For some species, there may be as many as five
pictures showing the coloration differences of juvenile birds, subadult
birds, males versus females, as well as differences that occur across
broad geographic regions. This additional information can help to settle
some tricky identification problems, but may also overwhelm beginning
birders with more information than is needed to identify the common birds
around their neighborhood.
Once you have selected
your field guide, do not - repeat, do not - immediately run off looking
for birds, because what you'll actually find instead of birds is trouble
and frustration. Many a field guide has spent more time collecting dust
than helping to identify birds because the owner didn't learn how to use
the guide. Sit down with your field guide when you first get it and read
through the complete introduction. Next, look at some of the pictures and
figure out where some of the common birds you recognize are located in the
field guide (i.e., front, back, or middle).
Field Guide
Organization
I have watched numerous beginners spot a bird
and immediately open their field guide to the middle pages. They then look
to the right ten pages, look left ten pages, and don't find the bird. Then
they look right 20 pages, look left 20 pages, and still don't find the
bird. After looking a few more pages left and right, they heave the guide
into the air out of disgust and give up the whole enterprise.
This happens because the person hasn't
learned how bird species are arranged in the field guide. It's no wonder
they get frustrated. Field guides, just like dictionaries and phone books,
are ordered according to a precise system that determines where different
birds are located in the book. If you were looking up the word "aardvark"
in the dictionary, you wouldn't begin somewhere in the middle, would you?
Similarly, if you see a sparrow-like bird sitting on the ground, don't
start searching through the middle of a field guide because all the
sparrows are located in the last quarter of field guides.
Most guides are roughly organized in
"phylogenetic order." Phylogenetic order is the way scientists classify
all living things (not just birds) based on their evolutionary history -
which creatures, according to likenesses in their present-day appearance,
most probably evolved from common ancestors. You can learn more about this
ordering system by reading your field guide. The point is that birds
having similar physical appearances occur very close together in a field
guide. You won't find sparrows on the same page with hawks or a loon
facing a warbler. All sparrows, loons, warblers, hawks, and even gulls and
blackbirds are located many pages away from one another.
There are five essential levels of
classification by which all birds are grouped. When we refer to birds of
the same "species," for example a group of 15 blue jays, we are using the
most specific level of classification. Similar species are grouped into a
"genus," then different genera (plural of genus) are grouped into a
"family," different families are grouped into an "order" of birds, and
finally all orders are grouped into just one "class." This is the class
"Aves," which in Latin refers to all birds. As you may guess, species in
the same genus are more closely related to one another - and look more
alike - than species in different genera. Likewise, families grouped in a
single order are more similar to one another than families grouped in
different orders.
Most field guides covering North America
contain about 800-900 species, grouped into over 300 genera, grouped into
74 different families, grouped into just 20 different orders (guides
limited to eastern or western North America have about half as many
species).
The most convenient and logical
classification level for the beginning birder to focus on is the family.
There are simply too many genera and species out there for a novice to
grasp easily, and identification to a particular order is too broad to be
challenging. More importantly, by learning the general shape, size, and
appearance of the different families of birds, you will develop the powers
of observation that characterize a good birder. In fact, you probably know
more about some of the families than you realize. For example, if you can
recognize a laughing gull you already know a lot about the general sizes
and shapes of all the gulls. Similarly, by knowing what a cardinal looks
like, you know a good bit about buntings, grosbeaks, and other members of
this family - namely that they have very thick, pointed bills. Our state
bird, the northern mockingbird, is in the family of mimic thrushes. All
birds in this family have the same approximate size and shape, including
that long tail.
Armed with the ability to recognize the
shapes of the major bird families and a good local field guide, you can go
anywhere in the world and immediately find yourself head and shoulders
above non-birders in terms of identification skills - even though you
don't have any familiarity or experience with the local birds.
So when you first get your field guide, spend
time looking at its organization and the way it groups families of birds.
Divide your guide into four sections using tags or sticky notes. The first
quarter will contain the families of large water birds, the second quarter
the large land birds (ending with the woodpeckers), and the last two
quarters will contain the small land birds (all in the order
"Passeriformes," commonly called the "passerines" or "perching birds").
Continue to look for common species that you already know and use these as
a guide for learning the common characteristics of other species in the
family. Remember, you should begin birding using your head, not running
around chasing after elusive thrushes and confusing fall warblers. Look
casually, not frantically, at birds you don't know. Equipped with your
spyglasses and trusty field guide, you can now begin to get acquainted
with all those flitting bundles of
feathers.
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