Every Bird is Considered Part of the Family. Yes, Even the Pipits.

I’ve been discussing the importance of specific color and body patterns in the previous posts.

I also mentioned that color isn’t everything. Most beginners and uneducated birdwatchers aim for color. For an example, Some of my classmates may approach me with a question such as:

“Hey, I saw a brightly colored yellow bird in my yard. What is it?”

"Oh yeah?" :)

Well. There are several brightly colored yellow birds in North America. I tend to try and narrow down the options with questions like, “What did it's body look like? Did you pay any attention to what the beak looked like?”

Usually I get some “I don’t know” answers, which doesn’t help me be able to identify it any better.

There’s More Than Just One Yellow Bird?!

A good thing to watch out for when trying to learn your bird species is to know general characteristics of that species in comparison to other species.

Let’s take two brightly colored yellow birds, the Yellow Warbler and the American Goldfinch.

Both of these birds are relatively small, but are in two different families. One is a Parulid (warbler), while the other is a Fringillid (finch). A good rule of thumb when trying to identify a specific bird against another species is the body type.

Compare the two similar looking birds.

The Yellow Warbler (bottom) and the American Goldfinch. Note the similar, yet different body shapes.

Both are relatively small, perching birds. Minus the extremely obvious color differences, the two birds are shaped relatively the same.

Look closely at the differences in the bill. Finches and warblers have different dietary needs and as such have different shaped bills. The finch has a blunt, hefty bill and the warbler has a narrow, pointed flat bill.

That is a good indicator of family differences in bird species; as such, educating yourself in the diet of certain birds can help you recognize bill shapes.

Another obvious way of separating bird species is watching their bodies in flight. In this next image, we see the very dramatic fork in the finch’s tail. This is very common in most finch species, as well as the longish “finger” feathers of the wing known as primaries. In the warbler, the tail is shaped like a fan and the primaries are generally short and not very spaced apart.

The same two birds as above, this time shown in flight.

Characteristics such as tail and bill appearance sets trends in most bird families. By looking at a Northern Mockingbird and a Brown Thrasher, it’s pretty apparent that they belong in the same family.

Not all birds are as simple, however. For example, roadrunners and cuckoos share the same family and the Yellow-breasted chat is a member of the warbler family. Not to mention that ravens and crows are in the jay family, not the blackbird family!

Birds of a Feather…Don’t Exactly Flock Together, Now Do They?

I distinctly remember the first time I came across a bird known as the American Pipit. Upon seeing it, I recognized the evident thrush body shape.

Think of the American Robin’s tall body posture and long legs for quick bouts of speed in your front lawn. The thing that confused me was that this bird was not in a lawn; it was hopping along the rocky shore of a lake.

What also confused me is how similar it looked to a Hermit Thrush, a woodland bird that hardly ever is seen with feet on the ground. So how is it that an American Robin, a Hermit Thrush and an American Pipit are all in the same family?

At least the warblers are mostly found in branches at various heights (minus the Ovenbird that is hardly ever seen off the ground…).

The American Pipit (bottom) and the Hermit Thrush. Both are in the same family, yet exhibit some different behaviors.

This makes family identifications tricky.

Most members of a family will behave the same way: most sparrows will forage on the ground for grains and grasses in small little clusters, and all jays will loudly announce themselves upon entering a tree with multiple other species, and all chickadees will hang from tree nuts up-side-down.

But the pipit?

What gave it away (besides the body shape) was the way it maneuvered itself. Again, picture the American Robin in your front lawn. It’ll pause and look. Then run, run, run. Then pause and look. Then run, run, run. It’s a pattern.

Guess what the pipit was doing?

Yes, an Education Does Help

Carefully watching different members of bird families may help you in the act of seeing a new species. If the body shape and some aspect of the bird’s behavior is familiar to you, you may be able to correctly identify its family and make the search in the field guide that much easier.

If you see a Green Jay for the first time, you should be able to see that it behaves and looks kind of similar to a Stellar’s Jay or a Blue Jay. As such, it must be some sort of jay!

 The best way of going about it is just to educate yourself on the families. A good start would be to pick up a copy of The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. This book lays out very specific behaviors of the bird behavior such as nesting, mating and feeding. It also gives great detail on body characteristics and song.

I'm a very big supporter of David Allen Sibley. 

-s.g martinez

THIS is why we all hate sparrows (continued cause i had too much to say)

I mentioned previously the importance of seeking out specific details when identifying similar looking species of a single family, such as sparrows. Like I said before, generally all sparrows have those basically identical solid steaks, stripes and spots. Which makes looking at a mixed flock of sparrows incredibly annoying.

I have found that jotting down quick notes of what is in front of me is really helpful. When on the field, a sparrow most likely will pop up.

And if you’re not around any type of urban settings such as a park or the like, you can most likely eliminate the very urbanized House Sparrow from the list.

The notes should be very quick; if you can, don’t look at your journal while you write, look at the bird. If the bird is small, jot it down. If the bird is tan with dark streaks, write it down. Try to pay attention to not only color, but also body shape.

My "jot notes" when I saw the Ruddy Turnstone for the first time. I later checked my guide with the description I had to identify it.

The Ruddy Turnstone as depicted by David Allen Sibley.

You’ll learn that different families of birds usually have different body shapes. For example, a grackle looks nothing like a sparrow.

Random Fun Fact That is Only Somewhat Relevant

The female Red-winged Blackbird can be confused with a member of the sparrow family if you aren’t careful; if you understand that members of the blackbird family usually have straight, very pointed bills as opposed to the blunt and less-straight bill of a sparrow family member, you can immediately tell the difference on just looks alone.

A female Red-winged Blackbird (bottom) in comparison to a Le Conte's Sparrow (top). While they do not look identical, they share pattern characteristics that may confuse a beginner.

But if you can pay attention to the habitat and surroundings, a female Red-winged Blackbird is mostly found in wet areas such as streams, marshes and swamps with the very apparent male Red-winged Blackbirds everywhere.

 Also, once you hear one vocalizing, it is very hard to confuse it with anything but the Red-winged Blackbird.

Wait. You’re Colorblind?

Don’t let me be contradictory, now. While the patterns and colors are very much important, they are not everything to indentifying a sparrow. Or any other bird, actually.  I was one of those feverish beginners who memorized her Sibley guide thinking it was enough to pass as an excellent birdwatcher. Negative.

I learned my lesson in the summer of 2008 when I was privileged enough to strike an internship at the Au Sable Institutes in the UP of Michigan. This institution was seated right in the middle of the La Pierre Forest, a large belt of hardwood boreal forest that spanned throughout most of the UP. Being in mid-forest, the nearest town happened to be a 45-minute drive. We were isolated.

I took several biology classes during that summer, one being Ornithology. My professor for that class of 12 to 13 students was a tall and lanky man named Kenneth Petersen.

I began noticing a trend with Dr. Petersen. If we came across a bird while in the field and that bird was not moving or singing he would begin to question us about it.

“Okay, guys. What color is the nape? What color are the flanks? The rump?”

We would answer every time. At first, I thought he was testing us. But the more and more I kept noticing the trend, the more I thought to myself, this man is colorblind!

And I was absolutely correct. Kenneth Petersen is colorblind. The only colors he can see are shades of yellow, making identifying solely by colors and patterns amazingly difficult. As such, he learned to memorize song and movement of each species. If the bird isn’t moving or singing, he has a hard time figuring it out.

I imagine the sparrows would be the worst (notice how we’re just hating on the sparrows) to try to identify.

Refer yourself to the images of the two sparrows in the previous post.  Now imagine seeing no color on those sparrows but the faint yellow dot above the navel cavity. And take note that these are extremely active, shrub loving birds in large mixed foraging groups.

That’s a difficult take to identify a mixed group with full color, but without?

The Botteri's (bottom) and Bachman's Sparrows gray scaled. Kinda look identical, eh?

Lesson learned: don’t just rely on color patterns.

A Game, You Say?

Don’t get me wrong. Detail is very important, just not the most important thing.

If you have full function of your colors, then yes, by all means, do pay attention to this detail; it. However, the more you study a bird in the field and discover its movements, its song and general characteristics, the quicker you’ll be able to distinguish birds without the sole need of the field guide.

I am hoping to encourage better birding and birdwatching tactics in you.

Hopefully, you will learn that it’s not all about sight anymore. It’s about habitat, behavior, song, foraging patterns, tthhheenn color and color patterns. Yes. The patterns help at first and will continue to be a stepping-stone as you advance.

Just don’t rely on it. That was my first mistake. Once I couldn’t get a good look at a bird due to its aloofness, I was practically blind. I did not know the bird’s song and I couldn’t recognize the body shape or behaviors.

Now I know that that bird was a White-eyed Vireo. And if you’re already a decently established birder or birdwatcher, you know that the Vireo family is very quick and stays out of sight. To distinguish these birds, you have to know the general song of each species.

It’ll take some time and a lot of effort. Patience is key. Remember, it’s all a studying game.

The White-eyed Vireo (bottom) and the very similar Red-eyed Vireo (top). You most likely will never get this clear of a look at a vireo unless just lucky.

-s.g martinez 

THIS is why we all hate sparrows

I suppose I can be labeled as a birdwatcher. Every time I go out onto the field, I am with my iPhone, which I keep my field guide, my life list and all my observational notes on. Due to the organization of the iPhone 4, I found it rather easy to switch from my field guide (The Sibley Guide to Birds of North America app; $29.99) to my observation notes, which is in my Notes app that came with the iPhone upon purchase.

This is my life saver. I could never go back to the book guide. Ever.

I know I’ve gone completely modern here, and that’s a bit terrifying to older birders and birdwatchers. I advise it because it’s easier, personally. I attempted the traditional way with the journal and the book; since I’m already such a clumsy person, it was just rather humorous to watch me attempt to flip through so many pages then write, then drop my pen, then drop my journal and then…

An image of observational notes I took while in the field. Not terribly in depth, but enough to compare to past notes.

Well, Actually...

 “Birdwatching”, of course, is the general term used for anyone participating in the act of watching birds, regardless what kind of watching a person is engaging in. If we want to get technical, that term is rather incorrect. A birdwatcher is someone who watches birds, yes. But this person is also engaging in what is known as an observational approach: usually a birdwatcher is seen with some form of journal or device to take notes and spends multiple minutes observing a specific bird’s behavior. The behavior, whether the bird is foraging, building a nest, socially interacting with others or being solitary, is the most important part of watching.

There is another term to describe a person usually only interested in what is known as a "life list" (the list of birds seen for an entire lifetime). This list become the pride and joy of a birder.  The birder is a person who does not usually carry a journal and relies solely on a field guide and past experiences or advice.

Older birders (ranging in the 50’s or above) tend to keep their life lists in their field guides, marking the birds they have seen by date and location. Usually, once the bird is seen, the birder does not care to record any more sightings of said bird.

For example, the first time a birder sees a Black-chinned Hummingbird, the birder will record the date, time and location of the sighting, and not record anything else for the Black-chinned Hummingbird for the life list even though there are large chances that the birder will see the Black-chinned Hummingbird again.

Sparrows Never Play Nice

One of the first things I noticed in my beginning years of birdwatching was that I had such a hard time identifying one species of bird from another. A good example of that very problem that every birder or birdwatcher has is learning to distinguish sparrow species. As such, everyone hates sparrows.

A funny fact about the field guide: it only points out the obvious if there’s a little arrow.

As you’ve probably seen, a lot of field guides are drawing based. I actually prefer these because to me it means that the naturalist that drew them has a keen eye for detail. Yes, Sibley and Peterson know exactly what they’re talking about. These guides have the little arrows pointing out less than obvious, or possibly obvious features of the bird.

For example, on the image for the Green Heron in the Sibley Guide, an arrow points to the neck stating, “streaked neck”. Sure it’s obvious in the book, but would you be able to catch that out on the field without it? Not only do these little arrows point out a feature of the bird, it teaches the beginner to keep a wide eye out for detail. The arrows are actually there for beginners. It screams, “HEY LOOK AT THIS ARROW NOW PRETEND THAT THERE ARE ARROWS ALL OVER THE BIRD YOU HAVE IN FRONT OF YOU.”

All sparrows have streaks. All of them. These streaks and spots and lines come in different colors and in different patterns. If you can pretend that there are arrows pointing to the bird you are looking at in the field, I promise that you’ll memorize the patterns faster. Think to yourself, “Okay. This sparrow’s streaks are really dark brown and they start at the neck and go down to the rump. And the wings are striped. And there is a yellow mark right above the nasal cavity.”

Do that first. Before ever opening the field guide. Get a good look. Thhheeennn open the book. Find your sparrow. If you kept a good eye in detail, you’d quickly discover that the sparrow you were looking at (if you knew it was a sparrow. We’ll talk about family distinctions later) is a Botteri’s Sparrow. In the book, the arrows, indeed, point to the dark stripes on the back of the bird.

If you can learn to recognize specific details first instead seeing a bird then automatically flipping through the book in a frenzy, memorizing patterns on a bird will help you in the battle of distinguishing them from members of the same family. To go back to the Botteri’s Sparrow example, another sparrow known as the Bachman’s Sparrow also has dark streaks on the back. The difference? These streaks are outlined in gray and black. This sparrow also has stripes on the wings and a yellow spot. 

It’s the very fine detail that will help. I’ve learned to even sketch the bird for a bit. If you have time to sketch it, you have plenty of time to fully look at the colors and patterns on it.

Note the fine difference (Bachman's on top). Could you catch that in the field?

-s.g martinez