Chronicles

Tips For Beginner Birders With Mike Lushington by: Mike Lushington   3.       Getting Out into the Field                                                                                                     In my first two articles in this series, I offered some thoughts on selecting and using a good set of binoculars and a reliable birding identification guide. Armed with these two indispensable tools, you are now prepared to get down to the actual business of identifying the birds that you have been looking at your feeders on your walks around the countryside.              Some two hundred and forty bird species have been identified in Restigouche County over the years. A serious birder who keeps an accurate list may well record nearly two hundred of them in any given year.         Twenty-nine species of waterfowl (ducks and geese), twenty-six shorebirds, twelve hawks, and twenty-three different species of warblers illustrate some of the complications that the beginning birder encounters. Our most common gull throughout most of the year is the Herring gull, but that species can appear in any one of sixteen different plumages from the time it is hatched until it becomes a full adult - and then changes its feathers every year after that from summer to winter.Initially, this all adds up to a great deal of confusion, and often discouragement, on the part of the beginning birder.              However, it is not all hopeless, especially if you arm yourself with a system for sorting out the things that you actually see (and hear) when you encounter a bird.              Perhaps the most basic but important bit of advice that I can offer is to study carefully the common birds around us. Here is a little test to illustrate just how important this can be. Everyone knows what a robin looks like - or do we? Close your eyes and describe, in as much detail as you can, exactly what a robin does look like. Write your description down and when you have gone as far as you can, compare your description with that in your guide. How much did you include? How much did you miss?         Knowing exactly what a robin, a common species of sparrow (perhaps the White-throated, or the Song sparrow), a Blue Jay, and a Black-capped chickadee look like provide standards for you to use when you begin to study other birds more closely. With these references, you should be able to compare the size of the bird you are considering with one of them - and that is a very useful first step.              Here are a couple of other things to note about them. A robin hops across a lawn, while many others walk or run. A robin flies in a very direct, fast line, while others bounce up and down, or flutter. A song sparrow often dives into the undergrowth and, just as it disappears, seems to twist its long tail to one side; it is the only sparrow to do so. Chickadees forage upside down in the branches of trees, while other small birds climb the trunks of trees downward (the nuthatches) or fly to the bottom of trees and climb up them in a spiral pattern (Brown creeper); warblers flit from branch to branch seemingly in endless motion, and so on.         Simply noticing that a bird acts differently from others in the vicinity often provides an initial clue to its possible identity. Watching, really watching and noticing, the common activities of the common birds we encounter is rewarding in itself, and, as I have stated here, a very valuable introduction to the whole business of becoming an accomplished birder.

Links

Irene's Nature Page  Margaret's Gallery  Restigouche Naturalists' Club