When you first start birding, it can be overwhelming, there are so many bird species that can be found at any particular time and place. Even within a state, there can be several hundred species that can be found within its borders throughout the year. New York, for example, has 514 species that have been found in the state. Not knowing how to narrow down a bird you are seeing to species let alone to family groups can be frustrating, it’s not fun to have to flip through every page in a guide while out in the field to find your bird. Even if you’re a more experienced birder, paying attention to key points of a bird can help you achieve a greater understanding of each species and for the diversity and similarities between species that you may have never noticed before. Of how these differences and similarities have evolved based on their habitats and diet.
When you start learning to id birds, there are 6 main things you want to pay attention to to help you figure out what species you are looking at. Size and shape are the first things you want to pay attention to when you look at your mystery bird, then what markings do they have, on their face, wings and body? What habitat are they in, are they in water, a forest, or field? Are they making sounds? Some species can really only be told apart from similar species by their vocalizations. And also, how are they acting? Are they bobbing their tail, catching airborne insects or probing in the soil with their bills in a specific way?
So let’s first go over size. Birds can come in an amazing variety of sizes, compare the tiny hummingbirds to species such as eagles, swans, or maybe even an ostrich. Certain shorebirds can look very similar but if you pay attention to their size, it can really help you decide on what species you are seeing.
Size can be a bit difficult to use in the field sometimes, size can be deceiving when a bird is far away from you. With this in mind, it can help to have something to compare them to. When trying to determine a bird’s size, think about species that you are already very familiar with or look for a nearby bird to compare its size to. Is the bird about the size of a House Sparrow? Or is it larger like an American Robin, or American Crow. Or maybe it’s a large bird and is close to the size of a Canada Goose? Or maybe you are scanning through a flock of Ring-billed Gulls and notice a similar looking bird but it’s larger, good chances are that it is actually a Herring Gull. This key can be important when distinguishing between similar looking species, think Sharp-shinned vs Coopers Hawk or Downy vs Hairy Woodpeckers. While this key may not be able to narrow a bird down to species, it is a very important clue to take notice of.
The next key to help you identify a bird, is to pay attention to its shape. Many times you can, at the very least narrow down what bird you are seeing to a specific group of birds based solely on its silhouette. A duck will have a greatly different shape than a long-legged and long-necked heron. Features such as leg, neck, or tail length, bill size and shape, ear tufts or crests can greatly change how a bird’s basic shape looks. Take a look at the famous illustration from Peterson’s field guide and look closely at each bird. Even though they are all just silhouettes, depending on your experience and familiarity with each of these species, chances are you can correctly identify each of these birds pictured or most of them. A bird’s shape is closely tied to how it lives, adapted to suit its chosen habitat, diet or lifestyle. Wading and shorebirds tend to have longer legs, finches’ bills are different thicknesses depending on the seeds they prefer, and many long distance migrating birds tend to have longer wings.
With shorebirds, these features can be crucial to their id, how long is their beak compared to their head? Or is their bill straight or curved downward? Do their wings extend past their tail feathers?
Some questions that you can ask yourself to get a better understanding of a birds size and shape are:
- How does its size compare to other birds around it or another species you are more familiar with?
- How is it shaped? Is it compact with a short neck and legs? Or maybe long-legged and long-necked, etc.
- Does it have any feature that stands out, maybe a crest, long tail or long wings?
Size and shape can help you narrow down a bird to usually at the very least to a family group. A gull has a very different size and shape than a warbler, or a bird of prey for example. A warbler and vireo are similarity shaped but their are differences in their shape, with even a minor field mark such as their bill tip being a great clue to which is which, if it ends in a hook, it’s a vireo for example.
Size and shape are important clues to bird id, these alone can lead to a positive id for many mystery birds. Each factor is a clue to how the bird lives and even its habitat. These two keys to id are great starting points to get more familiar with the birds around you. Getting familiar with these basic features of a bird can be useful in situations where the lighting might not be ideal, for when a bird is backlit by the sun and it appears just as a silhouette, or when you don’t get a good enough look to make out any finer details.
Paying close attention and learning these features can really improve your birding skills and open up your appreciation of the great diversity found within the world of birds!