So you want to be a bird expert?
Or maybe just a better birder?
But what exactly makes someone an expert? Is it someone who has a large life list and traveled the world? Or maybe they have an ornithology degree or are a paid guide? Or is it just someone who has been birding all their lives?
I personally don’t think most of these automatically make someone an expert birder. Seeing a lot of birds doesn’t mean you have learned to be able to pick out details of what makes each species unique. Even if you have been birding all your life, it doesn’t mean you have slowed down to notice the minor details of familiar species or worked to continuously improve your skills. An expert birder is someone who has developed the skills to truly SEE a bird, not just look at it. They are familiar with more just the basic colors and markings of a bird, but also how it behaves, forages and what habitat a bird is expected in.
An expert may have a much easier time IDing shorebirds and/or gulls because they know how to analyze a bird’s appearance beyond color, knowing what head and bill shape mean. These two groups seem to give many, if not most birders, a hard time. My theory is that most people rely heavily on just color to decide on what species they are looking at, which is understandable — we are a very visually-orientated species. Many times the thought of analyzing other, less obvious features or a bird, are overlooked. Features such as bill thickness, head shape and eye placement for gulls. Both of these groups tend to be very similarly colored — shorebirds shades of browns, and gulls shades of gray and white. Because of this, you need to rely on other features of birds other than color.
That’s where understanding the six keys to bird ID comes in. These keys are points to pay attention to to help you not only help ID a bird, but understand their biology and ecology better. To understand how to ID a bird by things other than physical characteristics. The six keys to bird ID are size, shape, color, habitat, behavior, and sound. Many times you may not be able to ID a bird from just one of these keys, but using multiple keys can greatly help, and will help you develop a greater understanding of each species.
So let’s go over each of the keys and learn how to use them.
Size: While you can’t generally narrow a bird down to species just by size, you can use it to eliminate a large proportion of species it can’t be. For example, if you see a large bird, bigger than a crow, you know it’s not any songbird species, ducks, or most shorebirds. Or if you see a small bird at a feeder, you know it’s not a raptor, waterfowl, heron, etc, and you only have a small portion of all the species in your area that you need to sort through.
Shape: A bird’s shape and proportions of its wings, legs, and neck can usually help you narrow down a bird to a specific family. It can greatly help you tell the difference between most shorebird species. Many of you are probably very familiar with the famous silhouettes in the beginning of the Peterson’s Field guides — these illustrations show many species as a black silhouette, but even without any other context, you can still accurately ID every species within those pages. A longer winged bird tends to either spend much of its time in their air or are a long-distance migrant. Long legged birds tend to be found in open grasslands or by waters edge etc.
Color: Most birders go-to ID feature. While field marks are usually the confirmation features, color can often be deceiving. A bird color or field marks can greatly vary between seasons, location, sex, and a bird’s age. An Immature American Herring looks vastly different from an adult.
Habitat: An often overlooked clue to a bird’s ID. Habitat can tell you what species or groups of species you can expect to see. Even a deciduous and coniferous forest can contain different species. It can help you decide between similar looking species – the Louisiana Waterthrush and Northern Waterthrush look very similar, but are typically found in different habitats. The Northern is typically sound in swamp wetlands, and the Louisiana by fast flowing streams in hemlock forests. Habitat also includes a bird’s expected range. Certain birds are found in certain parts of the country — you would expect a Mourning Warbler in New York, but certainly not a Macgillivray’s Warbler. Over 1,000 bird species have been documented in the United States, but typically only around 400-500 in each state, and it can be narrowed down even more when you consider habitat as another filter — greatly narrowing down the number of species you have to filter through for an identification mystery.
Behavior: This key requires actual careful observation hours to understand, by watching birds and noting how they move, forage and fly. How a bird moves and acts provides a surprising amount of clues about its identity. For example, you see a flycatcher bobbing its tail —that bird’s probably a Phoebe. A bird standing still at the waters edge, poised, ready to strike — is most likely a heron. How a duck is foraging can help you narrrow down what group of ducks you are looking at — if it’s diving, it’s probably a diving duck — if it’s tilting its front half underwater, you have a dabbling duck.
Sound: One of the most valuable keys, one that can really transform your birding journey. Birds tend to be very vocal species, emoting various calls and songs as they move about in their habitat. Learning how to interpret and ID a bird by these vocalizations will allow you to get a better overview of the species you are — after all, you will probably hear more birds than you actually see. Think about all the Warblers out of sight in the tree canopy, or secretive marsh birds hidden deep within a cattail marsh.
Understanding each of these aspects of bird life will greatly improve your birding skills. Not only to ID a bird, but to understand how each key affects each other, but also how a bird looks. Its habitat can affect its physical features, such as leg length, colors, or even their sounds.
An expert is familiar with each of these keys, and how to apply them. When to favor one over the other and when to ignore one depending on the situation.
These keys are great ways to get a better understanding of birdlife. They force you to more closely examine what makes each species unique and by mastering being able to notice these unique elements of a bird, you will become an expert in no time!
So get outside, pick a species, and truly observe it. Take note of its shape and proportions, how does it forage, what habitat is it present in. Develop your observation skills and enjoy the process of getting familiar with even the most common species, you may be surprised with what you never noticed before!
If you are a new birder and want to learn how to be a better birder, or want to do a deeper dive into the 6 keys to Bird ID, check out my Birding Academy membership at www.thebirdingacademy.com