Bird Watching Beginner Tips
Probably the crux of bird watching is to identify the bird you are watching. This is central to any bird watching activity. Anyone can look at a bird, admire it and move on. It takes a bird watcher to observe it more closely and try and draw certain conclusions from the way it behaves. This is where the challenge lies because you need to have read up quite a bit so that you can properly identify a bird. This becomes even more difficult when the bird is far away or when it is in flight. It is only after a lot of experience that a bird watcher can identify most of the birds he sees.
Use your ears and listen carefully for bird sounds. Bird watching involves the hearing as well as you need to identify birds by sight and sound.
What also is a deterrent is that birds often tend to sit among the foliage or to sit in the shade. When they are playing, it is usually in the not so open, hidden places. Now this can be a bit tough on and frustrating for the new birdwatcher. So one should ideally not get too upset if a bird cannot be identified immediately. Observation is the name of the game and every bird is worth watching just for itself, even if you cannot put a label on it. Once you get a bit more experienced, you will start to notice the little things that make it easier for you to identify it.
There are a few things that you could do to make things easier. The first requisite of course is to possess a pair of binoculars so you can see the bird up close. When you start bird watching, always keep one particular bird in focus and don’t keep following many birds as you will not learn anything this way. Follow that one bird till maybe he goes off and you can’t see him anymore – then switch to another. Most birds can be kept an eye on because if you follow one carefully, you can see where it goes to hide itself, something that may not be apparent if you were not following it.
You could get yourself a book or maybe join a beginners’ club where they are sure to give you one. Once you have read it, you will find it easier to identify the birds you see. Pay close attention to the color, the markings and the movements of the bird as well as its habits.
Use your ears and listen carefully for bird sounds. Bird watching involves the hearing as well as you need to identify birds by sight and sound. Now this might seem easy but it is not. When you hear so many bird sounds, after a while, one might sound like another. It takes time to be able to put a sound to a bird. This stage is great because then once you hear a sound, you know which bird is out there even without seeing it.
You also need to observe the bird’s size and shape as this will help you in categorizing it into a family. A time will come when you will be able to tell a bird’s classification from its size. Another thing that helps you to identify this is the bill. Each bird has its own particular shape and color of bill. The facial markings are also important. Each one has different markings around the eyes, different colors on the face and different patches and stripes. This takes time and patience considering that birds hardly ever sit still. You could start with a bird that sits around for longer first before going on to the ones that are very active.