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Identifying Birds -the following is from http://floridabirdingtrail.com, and the links below will take you there -a great site!
Identifying
Birds
By now you're
familiar with the organization of field guides and with some
of the different families of birds. You have binoculars and
can spot an object with your naked eye and then look at it
through the binoculars without having to search for ten
minutes. Most importantly, you've avoided the frustration -
so far - of trying to associate a particular name with a
particular bird. Now, to accomplish this feat, let's go over
some helpful techniques for learning to identify families
and species of birds.
The first thing
to remember is: don't make bird identification hard on
yourself. There are two general rules to keep in mind during
your first few months of Birdwatching: 1) eliminate as many
species as possible from consideration before you ever
attempt to identify anything, and 2) the bird is most likely
a species that commonly occurs in your area, not some
strange exotic that blew in from a thousand miles away.
These rules are
closely tied to one another, and they focus on making
birding easier by reducing the number of choices you have to
consider. For example, in Florida there is only one type of
hummingbird that occurs regularly, the ruby-throated
hummingbird (verify this from your field guide, if you
like). Several other hummingbirds have been seen in Florida
on occasion, but why worry about trying to identify these
uncommon vagrants until you have more experience with our
most common species?
I received a
long-distance phone call one day from a woman who thought
she had a spotted owl in her backyard. She wanted to know
why she couldn't find the bird in her field guide of eastern
birds. It's no wonder! Spotted owls occur in several western
states but they're as rare as two-pound diamonds east of the
Rockies. This woman had recently seen a picture of a spotted
owl in Natural History magazine, so when she saw an owl that
looked like the picture she immediately went looking for
spotted owls in her field guide, passing right by barred
owls, which look similar and, more importantly, are common
throughout the Southeast. It took me approximately ten
minutes to convince her that it might be a barred owl and
that perhaps she should look more closely at this bird. She
eventually agreed with me, but this was a perfect case of a
beginning bird watcher making things harder than they had to
be.
One of the
easiest ways to exclude birds is to go through your field
guide and put an "X" next to those that do not typically
occur in your geographic area. Put these aside for the time
being. By doing this, you drastically reduce the number of
birds you have to worry about identifying from the 900 birds
in your guide to the 300 or so birds that are regularly seen
in Florida! By the way, don't worry about marking up your
field guide. A field guide personally adjusted to meet your
needs is the best friend you can have when alone in the
field. I kept extensive notes in my first field guide. In
fact, on one page it was hard to see the drawings amid all
my scribbles. Just make sure to use a pencil or permanent
ink so that the words won't smear if you leave the book in
the rain or drop it in the mud occasionally.
Another way to
eliminate choices is to consider the time of year the bird
might occur in your area. The range maps included with field
guides display this type of information. Some beginners
might even find it beneficial to place colored dots next to
birds in their field guides. For example, put a red dot next
to birds that are year-round residents, put a blue dot next
to birds that are only winter visitors, put a green dot next
to birds that are summer visitors, and put a black dot next
to birds that only pass through Florida during migration.
These procedures
will quickly eliminate a lot of confusing birds from
consideration. For example, there are approximately 180
birds that breed in Florida and another 20 or so that hang
around in small numbers during the summer. So, if you see
some unknown bird in the middle of July, don't consider the
900 species shown in your field guide. Instead, you only
have to choose from 200 or so different birds that occur
within Florida during the summer. Simple, right?
Identification Clues
The way that some
birds skulk about, you'd think that they were afraid of
showing off their pretty colors and didn't want anyone to
identify them. And this is the case, no doubt, as they must
somehow evade predators from both above and below. Often,
their quick movements allow us only a glimpse. Still, you
will be able to identify even the most secretive bird using
the key clues to identification described here.
There are five basic
clues you can look and listen for that will allow you to
solve the bird identification puzzle: 1) the bird's
silhouette, 2) its plumage and coloration, 3) its behavior,
4) its habitat preferences, and 5) its voice. This may seem
like a formidable amount of information to gather, but in
truth you often need only one or two of these clues to
identify a bird. Sometimes, the key to identification is
simply knowing which clue to look for first when you see an
unusual bird. As your birding abilities increase, you will
be able to pinpoint the important clues with greater ease
and certainty.
Silhouette - Shape and Size
As you become
familiar with your field guide, you will be able to quickly
categorize most birds into families using silhouette alone
(remember, each family has a diagnostic shape and size).
This will immediately put you at an advantage compared to
the average observer because by placing the bird you see
into a particular family, you have already narrowed down the
possible birds you could be seeing from the 900 in your
field guide to only about 15 or so birds - the 15 birds
within the family you have identified. As mentioned earlier,
you can then further eliminate any species in the family
that do not occur in Florida during that season. You can do
this even in the worst of lighting conditions when birds are
backlit, in low light, or in shadow. It doesn't matter. The
overall shape is unchanged. Many birds are even identifiable
to species by outline alone.
Of course, it
will not be easy to accomplish this feat at first. You must
learn to note carefully all the details of a bird's shape.
Is the bird large or small, short-legged or long-legged,
crested or not crested, plump or slim and sleek,
short-tailed or long-tailed?
The shape of a
bird's bill is also an extremely helpful clue that is
obvious from a silhouette. Cardinals, finches, and sparrows
have short conical bills. Woodpeckers have chisel-shaped
bills for working dead wood. Hawks, eagles, and falcons, on
the other hand, have sharp, hooked bills that make quick
work of meat. Shorebirds have slender bills of all lengths
for probing at different depths into the sand.
Size is also an
important field mark and field guides do list the size of
birds next to pictures. However, if you don't have some type
of scale in mind, these numbers are of little use. The
"ruler" I use in the field is a mental association of three
familiar birds with three general size classes. For example,
a house sparrow is 5-6 inches in size, a northern
mockingbird is 9-11 inches in size, and an American crow is
17-21 inches in size. Now, using phrases like "larger than a
crow" or "smaller than a sparrow," you have an immediate
impression of the approximate size of any bird. You also
have an immediate frame of reference for your field guide if
you associate each of these three species with 5,10, and
20-inch size classes.
Plumage
Plumage
characteristics are what really draw a lot of people into
Birdwatching - they like seeing those beautiful colors. The
distinguishing plumage clues that identify different species
are known as "field marks." These include such things as
breast spots, wing bars (thin lines along the wings), eye
rings (circles around the eyes), eyebrows (lines over the
eyes), eye lines (lines through the eyes) and many others.
Some field marks
are best seen when a bird is in flight. A flying northern
harrier can be identified from nearly a mile away with good
binoculars because the bird has a bright white patch on its
rump.
Some families of
birds can be broken into even smaller groups based on one or
two simple field marks. For example, warblers are fairly
evenly divided between those that have wingbars and those
that do not. So if you see a warbler-like bird, look quickly
to see if it has wingbars. Sparrows, on the other hand, can
be separated into two smaller groups based on whether or not
the breast is streaked. Look for other broad distinctions
for other families.
Behavior
A bird's
behavior - how it flies, forages, or generally comports
itself - is one of the best clues to its identity. Hawks
have a "serious" demeanor, crows and jays are "gregarious,"
and cuckoos are... well, not really. Woodpeckers climb up
the sides of tree trunks searching for grubs like a lineman
scaling a telephone pole. Flycatchers, on the other hand,
wouldn't climb a tree trunk if their lives depended on it.
They spend most of their time sitting upright on an exposed
perch. When they see a bug cruising into range they quickly
dart from their perch, snag the meal, then return to the
same perch or another one nearby. Finches spend a lot of
their time on the ground in search of fallen seeds, as do
mockingbirds, catbirds, and brown thrashers. Some wading
birds, such as snowy egrets and reddish egrets, are very
active foragers and chase their prey around in shallow
waters. Other wading birds, such as great blue herons, are
less impetuous and hunt slowly with great patience and
stealth.
Even the way a
bird props its tail gives some clues as to which species or
family it might be. Wrens characteristically hold their
tails in a cocked position and often bounce from side to
side. Spotted sandpipers and Louisiana waterthrushes bounce
their tails and rumps rapidly up and down as if doing a
stylish dance step. Some thrushes and flycatchers, on the
other hand, move their tails frequently but slowly, with a
wave-like motion. You can even identify some birds just by
the way that they fly. Most finches and woodpeckers move
through the air with an undulating flight pattern, flapping
their wings for short bursts and then tucking them under for
a short rest. One group of raptors, the buteos or soaring
hawks, circle the sky suspended on outstretched wings. Most
falcons, another group of raptors, fly with strong wingbeats
and rarely hover. Yet another group, the accipiters or bird
hawks, usually fly in a straight line with alternating
periods of flapping and floating.
Habitat
Even if a range
map shows that a bird occurs in your neck of the woods, this
doesn't mean the bird will be common wherever you go. Birds
segregate themselves according to habitat type and are
sometimes quite picky in selecting an area as home. Wading
birds and ducks, for example, prefer watery habitats rather
than dry upland areas. Pine warblers and brown-headed
nuthatches associate primarily with pinewoods and are less
common in areas containing large numbers of oaks, hickories,
and other deciduous trees. Some Florida birds, like the
snowy plover, are restricted primarily to the sandy coast,
while others, including the limpkin, occur mostly along
river swamps and freshwater marshes.
Beginning bird
watchers must usually spend many hours afield before they
are able to associate different species with different
habitat types. I suggest you develop a key to habitats you
frequent and keep notes of where you see different species.
Make the habitat key simple at first, using terms like salt
and freshwater marsh, pinelands, deciduous forest, beach,
urban area, farm and pastureland, etc. Then elaborate on
this key as you learn to distinguish among different Florida
habitat types. You can put abbreviations such as "SM" (for
salt water marsh), "PW" (for pinewoods), and "FP" (for farm
and pasture) next to the pictures of birds in your field
guide after you have some feel for where the birds occur.
Most field guides actually provide this information in the
written description but this abbreviated system may help you
remember the habitats where each bird occurs.
Voice
Some have
thought it would be rewarding to teach blind people how to
"bird listen." Birds have unique songs and calls and voice
is often all that's needed to identify many of the birds you
encounter. If each species didn't have a distinctive call or
song, there would be a lot of confusion out there when birds
tried to communicate. Just as you can tell that the person
on the other end of the phone is Uncle Ted and not Aunt Jora,
so too can you learn to distinguish the different voices of
birds.
Listening to
recordings helps considerably when you are trying to learn
bird vocalizations. Many are currently available on tape and
CD. Some excellent recordings include: Peterson's Birding
by Ear (1989) and More Birding by Ear (1994) by
Richard Walton and Robert Lawson; Peterson's A Field
Guide to Bird Songs, Eastern and Central North America
(1990); Sounds of Florida's Birds by William Hardy
(1996); and Bird Songs of Florida by Geoffrey Keller
(1997). However, no matter how many recordings you listen
to, there is no substitute for going out into the field.
There's something about the association of voice and bird
that helps to fix both in memory. Plus, bird vocalizations
are complex and no set of recordings can hope to encompass
all the variety and geographic variations that can be
experienced firsthand out in nature.
Additional
Tips
Going afield
with experienced birders can often help to speed you along
the bird identification learning curve, and a variety of
private and public groups offer bird tours throughout
Florida. The local chapter of the Audubon Society is perhaps
the best starting place to find out more about birding trips
in your area. National organizations such as the American
Birding Association also offer a multitude of birding
information in the form of magazines, newsletters, annual
meetings, guided trips, and retailers of birding books,
recordings, binoculars, and other equipment.
To keep track of
all the birds you encounter, the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission has prepared a "Checklist of
Florida's Birds." Single copies of this publication are
available free by writing to: Bird Checklist, Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission, BWDC Pubs., 620 S.
Meridian St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600. Checklists and
other birding information are also available free through
the "Wings Over Florida" program which awards certificates
at a variety of achievement levels to birders who keep track
of their life lists of Florida birds. Write to "Wings Over
Florida Application Packet" at the same address.
Birding is not
the easiest sport in the world to learn, but it is
definitely one of the most rewarding. To offset those first
outings when you flipped through your field guide with
frustration, there will be many years' worth of pleasant and
intriguing field trips. You see, birders experience
something new every time they go out. Even if they don't see
a new species for the first time, they might see a new
behavior, hear a new vocalization, or just explore a new and
wild corner of Florida. They might even come across
something startling, like a rare European bird that somehow
strayed far from home.
The constant
variety and challenge of birding are two important
attractions, but so too is the camaraderie. About 42 million
people in the United States are casual bird watchers,
feeding and observing birds around their homes. A much
smaller number, around 17 million, take trips for the
primary purpose of watching birds. Still, that's a lot of
people poking their heads into bushes and craning their
necks toward the sky.
I've developed a
good number of lasting friendships as I've cruised some
isolated road and happened across a kindred soul bedecked
with binoculars and a field guide. We shoot the breeze for a
while, exchange notes on what we've seen that day, and then
walk along together for a short while to find out what new
birds are hiding in the bushes ahead. Birding is always
filled with a world of new people and new experiences.
Email Us: Rhenn@HearTheSoundsofNature.com
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