Birding

V

Beyond the Backyard

Although it is possible to see and enjoy many species of birds in the backyard or in neighboring landscapes, many birds have not adapted well to urban conditions and prefer more natural habitats. Birding excursions to rural areas, forests, and shorelines open up many new bird-viewing possibilities. Some of the common, widespread species that birders look for in farmlands, grasslands, and other open country include vultures, kites, northern harriers, ring-necked pheasants, burrowing owls, bobolinks, meadowlarks, and goldfinches. Forests are home to broad-winged hawks, ruffed grouse, winter wrens, many finches, and most species of owls, woodpeckers, flycatchers, thrushes, warblers, and tanagers. Many birds prefer ponds, stream banks, marshes, and wet meadows, among them grebes, herons and egrets, ducks, sedge and marsh wrens, common yellowthroats, several kinds of sparrows, and red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds. Coastlines, large rivers, bays, and lakes are home to water birds such as loons, pelicans, cormorants, geese, ducks, gulls, terns, auks, and puffins. Birders visit all of these habitats in all seasons to view these birds in the wild and build their bird lists.

As winter approaches, some birds prepare for migration to warmer areas where food is more plentiful. Knowledgeable birders learn the migration routes for the birds they wish to view, and they seek out favored places where birds congregate along that route. These sites may include areas where birds gather in preparation for a long flight, known as staging areas. Other sites are known as resting or refueling stops, landing sites after long voyages over water, and winter-feeding grounds. Bays, estuaries, and wetlands may hold tens of thousands of migrating or wintering waterfowl. Arctic-nesting shorebirds move north across North America in April and May, then south again after breeding, from July to September. At such times they may gather in small flocks at ponds, mud flats, shorelines, and wet fields, and sometimes in huge numbers at rich feeding areas along the coasts.

Many migratory birds follow well-established routes, reappearing year after year at the same localities. Thousands of sandhill cranes regularly visit Nebraska’s Platte River Valley in March and early April. Raptors in fall migration sail past Hawk Mountain in eastern Pennsylvania or Hawk Ridge in northeastern Minnesota. The Delta Marsh Bird Observatory, located at the south end of Lake Manitoba near Ottawa, Canada, is a primary fall stopover site for migrating songbirds, including yellow warblers, song sparrows, and American redstarts. Many migrant birds collect at promontories and coastal islands in the spring and fall, including such well-known birding hotspots as High Island, Texas; the Dry Tortugas, Florida; Cape May, New Jersey; Point Reyes, California; and Point Pelee in Ontario, Canada.

Birders often travel to find birds that live only in certain regions, especially birds whose ranges barely reach the borders of the United States and Canada. Popular sites include southeast Arizona and the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where birders can view bird species native to Mexico; south Florida, which hosts birds from the West Indies; and western Alaska and the Atlantic coast provinces of Canada, where birders can view birds of Eurasian and Arctic distribution.

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Certain bird species with very small populations can be found only in restricted areas. Whooping cranes, for example, are best viewed only in their wintering grounds at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas coast, while Kirtland’s warblers are rarely seen except in northern Michigan where they breed in jack-pine stands. Many birders join special tours just to view these two species. Likewise, birders go on organized boat trips to see ocean-going bird species, such as albatrosses, shearwaters, and skuas, which cruise the open seas for most of the year.

VI

How to Identify Birds

Identifying birds is one of the most challenging tasks that birders face. Identification can be challenging because the traits that distinguish one species from another are often subtle and difficult to observe. Different species of birds sometimes look alike, while birds of the same species may show marked differences between males and females, juveniles and adults, or summer and winter plumage. Accurate bird identification should be based on several aspects of the bird’s appearance and reinforced by other indicators such as vocalization, behavior, and habitat.

A

Appearance

Bird identification often begins with what birders call jizz (the general impression of size and shape that a bird conveys at first sight). Jizz is not a definitive identification technique, however, and must be confirmed by close and careful examination of the bird’s size, structure, color, and patterning. One way for beginners to gauge the size of a bird is to compare it to a nearby object of known size. Judging size can sometimes be tricky, however, especially when the bird is at a distance and there are no other objects nearby for comparison.

The structure of a bird’s body, wings, tail, bill, or feet can help distinguish a bird. For instance, body and bill shapes can distinguish a gull from a plover on the same stretch of ocean beach. Raptors such as ospreys, bald eagles, and broad-winged hawks can be identified from their distinctive silhouettes in flight. Ospreys have long wings with an angled leading edge. The large head of the bald eagle projects well forward of the straight leading edge of its wings, and the ends of the wings have a squared-off appearance. The broad-winged hawk has a small head and short tail and its broad, pointed wings have a smooth outline.

The shape of a bird’s bill has evolved as a consequence of the type of food the bird eats, and this characteristic is a powerful aid to identification. Hawks, owls, and eagles have strong, hooked bills for tearing the flesh of small animals. The straight, thick bills of herons, egrets, and kingfishers enable them to seize or spear frogs, fish, and crayfish, which they then swallow whole. Many ducks have broad bills that act as shovels to dredge up and strain out roots, seeds, and small water life. The hummingbird uses its long bill to collect nectar located deep within flowers. The short, stout cone-shaped bills of cardinals and sparrows are adapted for gathering and cracking seeds.

The colors of a bird’s bill, legs, and feet are often different from species to species, providing good field marks. In certain species the eyes and areas of bare skin around the face and throat may be distinctively colored. However, coloration of these parts can also vary within a single species as a result of different geographic populations, breeding conditions, diet, and other factors.

Feather patterns are also unique for most species. The upper parts and underparts of wings may show combinations of colors, sometimes in a characteristic pattern. A folded wing often shows one or two bars of a different coloration. The head may be distinctively patterned with crown stripes, eyebrows, eye rings, eye lines, cheek patches, and mustache-like marks. Many species exhibit pronounced differences of plumage between sexes, ages, and molt phases. Others show a great range of geographic variation, and some (such as the red-tailed hawk) may have strikingly different color differences among individuals in the same locality. Birders learn the distinctive coloration and patterns of all these plumages as if they were separate species. Plumage fading or wear, as well as fog, rain, and certain lighting conditions at dusk or dawn, can sometimes distort the external appearance of birds, leading to erroneous bird identification.

B

Vocalizations

Bird vocalizations provide strong clues to a bird’s identity, although identifying distinctive songs and calls in the wild requires patience, experience, an excellent memory, and a finely tuned ear. Many birds rarely leave the cover of dense vegetation, and experienced birders can identify many of these birds by their vocalizations alone. Certain other species, although easy to see, may be visually indistinguishable in the field. For these birds, their song or call are the most reliable means of identification.

Commercial recordings of bird songs can help birders become familiar with certain vocalizations, but they do not take the place of long and diligent field experience. Attempts at mimicking the sounds that birds make can be a useful aid to memory. The most successful are those that capture a distinctive rhythm and cadence, for example the “witch-i-ty witch-i–ty witch-i-ty” of the common yellowthroat. Ultimately, however, it is the quality of a song (for example, whether it is fluted, reedy, whistled, or buzzy) that makes it unique. These qualities are the most difficult aspect to describe in words.

C

Behavior

Characteristic behaviors can be an important part of bird identification. Birds have different ways of nesting, courting, foraging for food, swimming, walking, and flying. For example, some birds search for insects or berries exclusively on the ground. Others search for food in low vegetation or in the highest tree canopies. Many birds feed underwater using distinctive diving patterns. Some birds jump-dive into the water from a floating position. Others put their head and neck under water and look around before propelling themselves deeper into the water with their wings and feet in pursuit of fish.

Locomotion patterns can also distinguish bird species. Some birds walk along the ground, others hop. Other birds bob their hind ends or pump their tails ceaselessly. During flight, herons and egrets fly with bowed wings, measured beats, and necks usually tucked back. Cranes, in comparison, fly with necks extended using a faster wing beat on the upstroke.