Boning up on bird identification can be quite the humbling experience. Where one thinks one is, perhaps, "observant", one discovers one is... probably due for glasses and a dose of Focusin.
So how do you use your bird guide? Do you just browse it here and there? Do you set out to learn about one bird at a time? Do you wing it (har-de-har) and just go along as you find new birds? How do you make it work for you?We have two different woodpeckers out there. Somewhere. I hear them, and I've seen them. I know they're there. But I don't know what they are.
I do know there was, at least, one Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker (which I think is one of the best names, ever, for a bird!) Unfortunately, I only know this because of what it did to the alleged apple tree in the back yard:
I don't think I've actually seen it. The only one we see regularly has a lot more red on it than the Lily-Livered Tree Mauler. So. Last night I sat with my Peterson's guide and boned up on the woodpeckers in our region.
This weekend, I think I'm going to catch me a photo of our regular visitor and see if we can give him a name.
Kiss those babies!
~Dy
11 comments:
I do browse our bird guide, as does Jake. I usually pick it up though, to learn about a specific bird that I've spotted. Many times we will hear a bird before we see it, and unfortunately bird guide books don't have audio files.
Here's a site we love. There are lots of audio files, which helped me to finally identify a Bewicks Wren, whose song is very different from her cousin's from Carolina. The two birds look a lot alike though.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds
Since you know you have a woodpecker, why not determine which ones live in your region, and listen to all their songs on that site, and then you'll have an idea of what you should be looking for. Just a thought.
Oh, yes. That cornell site is one of my favorites. I can blow an entire afternoon just listening to the sound files! LOL!
We haven't actually heard the woodpecker, except when he's pecking. It looks like there are about four kinds that frequent our area - one is seasonal - so that narrows it down. Hopefully we'll get a good picture. :-)
Dy
The way we do it, is to keep the guide right by the window. When we see a bird, someone runs for the book while the other tries to commit to memory all the noticable things about the bird. If we are lucky, the birds stays put long enough for us to identify!
We also like those soft birds you press and they make the bird call... that REALLY helps identify calls.
FWIW, when I came over from England, I recognised 2 American birds... the sparrow and the starling. I can now identify considerably more!!
Come to think of it, I might have gotten that site from you...sorry if it's a repeat.
mere
Bird guide?
I finally found a solution after today's walk. Find a list of likely birds for where you were, and use Google's Image search for each one in turn (in my case, restricting it to the .au domain, just to simplify things). I was able to identify _most_ of the birds we saw, although there were too many of them for me to remember.
The couple of times we've used a physical guide, I've just been overwhelmed by the choices:-(
We also have a book by the window (outside which are the feeders - strategically placed for our viewing pleasure). I have binoculars and a camera there. The camera has been our best friend - once we have a photo, we can look at it calmly & identify it from the books/websites. The zoom on it is great - even when I can't quite make it out, the zoom will often catch it, & then I can sharpen it up on the computer enough for ID.
We've also gone on some local birding walks with experienced birders to point out what we were seeing/hearing. That was probably the most helpful.
I've found whatbird.com useful. We scout thrift shops/used bookstores for multiple copies of bird books. My son likes the Golden Field Guide to North American Birds. Readers Digest has a large book with nice drawings, too. At the beginning of this summer, I had to rescue a baby woodpecker from a large spider web in my yard, my first thought was that it was a baby bat.
Dot
We use the Keep the Guide by the Window approach. The kids picked out some really gorgeous birds from the book that they would Like to see, but so far "their" birds haven't shown up.
Yep, we keep the bird book by the window, and we also have feeders set up outside the windows. A certain times of the year, we see some really unusual birds passing through. Happy Birding!
We also use the bird guide/binoculars/camera/feeder outside the window approach...and we keep a list of everything we see that, at present, has over 60 birds on it. The trouble is that some birds you see in the fall are different looking when they come back in the spring so the list helps us keep track. What I really wanted to tell you though was that you should cut down the apple tree pronto if the coward breast beetle juicers have been after it. We learned of this the hard way when the arborist told us that they only go after the trees that are diseased, thus filled with tree rot maggots (ooohh, don't you like the sound of that one?)and it can spread to other trees. Cut it down, burn the wood (it still smells great) and then don't plant anything in that space for a few seasons. We lost a beautiful maple to this. Happy hunting (and chopping).
We use the bird guide within-arms-reach-approach too. We have also been using the Apologia Zoology curriculum. WOW, learned a lot! Q has become quite proficient at identifying our birds (and all of their parts) after using that curriculum.
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