Becoming a birder

To get started in birding, all you need is curiosity. Traditionally, a guide to identification and a pair of binoculars are considered the basic requirements—and as your birding hobby expands these items will become essential. But in the twenty-first century, you can find information and helpful discussion groups online, and many people now start birding with a digital camera instead of binoculars.

You will learn faster if you can be an active observer—draw sketches, take notes, write poetry, take photos—whatever will make you look a little more carefully and a little longer. One of the best approaches is to ask yourself questions: Why is that bird acting that way? How does the bill shape of one species compare to others? The more you notice the more you will learn.

It’s a good birding habit to try to limit the impact you have on the birds’ behavior. Owls are especially sensitive to disturbance [this page, Eastern Screech-Owl], but we should try to disturb all birds as little as possible.

BIRD IDENTIFICATION

One of the keys to successful bird identification is noticing differences and similarities [this page]. Pay attention to shape (especially bill shape) and habits, as well as color, and learn which species are related.

Browsing this book will give you a sense of the wide variety of bill shapes. Thinking about the birds’ feeding habits, you will quickly notice patterns in how each bill shape is used [this page and this page].

Pay attention to all aspects of a bird’s shape. For example the presence of a crest [this page] or different shapes of wings [this page].

The habits of birds are other powerful clues for distinguishing species. For example, the tilting flight of a Turkey Vulture is distinctive [this page] and very different from the undulating flight of most songbirds [this page] or the smooth, graceful flight of a swallow [this page]. Wrens can often be identified by a characteristic habit of raising their tails [this page], and a phoebes have a habit of wagging their tails [this page].

Color is often one of the easiest clues for distinguishing similar species. The Pyrrhuloxia is very closely related to the Northern Cardinal, even though it is colored quite differently [this page]. Three species of chickadees differ mainly in color patterns [this page]. The Varied Thrush is in the same family as the American Robin and shares a similar orange and gray color, but differs in many details of color pattern [this page].

Groups of related species always share fundamental similarities. For example, all woodpeckers climb trees using their stiff tail as a brace [this page]. Nuthatches climb trees but without using their tail [this page]. In some cases unrelated species evolve similar solutions to the same challenge. Brown Creepers have evolved the same modified tail and the same climbing method as woodpeckers, but they are not related [this page].