Bird Identification Course

Introduction

This course is designed to teach birders or aspiring birders how to identify birds. It is especially designed for someone unfamiliar with birding and the terminology that birders use.

There are a variety of approaches to identifying a bird in the field. What we have done is divide up the course according to these different approaches so you can jump in at almost any place in the Table of Contents. Or you can just start at the beginning and go through the topics sequentially. We have also added a quiz at the end of each topic to test your knowledge.

Here are the different ways you can ID a bird using one of them or all of them together.

Ways to Identify a Bird
By color By shape By location (e.g., shore vs. mountains) By specific features (e.g., bills, eyes, feet) By field marks (more specific features that distinguish one bird from another) By behavior By "gestalt" By nests and nesting locations By ear (song and calls)

Topography of a Bird Body

The body of a bird can be thought of as a three dimensional surface with different regions that can be defined. In most cases these regions correspond to distinct groups of feathers that are found on every bird, making this a very useful tool for describing any bird in the world. The basic breakdown of feather groups and parts of a bird are shown below, and will be discussed in detail in this tutorial.

Constant Features

Every bird is built on the same general plan, for example all birds have two eyes, a bill and two feet. These constant features can be very important for identifying a bird because feathers are highly variable due to age, season, wear, and light. Constant features can be used to help identify a bird no matter how its feathers look.

Plumage Variations

Despite their many variations, feathers are still the easiest way to identify birds because they create a distinct, colorful appearance that is unique to each species. Although feathers cover the entire body of a bird they are actually clumped in distinct patches that are separated by bare skin. Each of these feather groups is named (i.e. belly vs. chest) to give us a system for describing every bird.

ID by Specific Features

In this section we are going to learn to ID a bird by specific features. These features are:

• The Bill
• The Head
• The Body
  

The Bill

Bills are a bird's primary feeding tool and they are as varied as the birds that use them. They can be long, straight, short, curved, bent, or hooked. They can probe, spear, crush, tear, dig, or drink. And many variations in between. There are no firm categories for naming bill types, so they are loosely grouped by their primary characteristics. Six common types are discussed in this tutorial. We use the term "bill," but "beak" means the same thing.

There are two parts to the bill. The upper mandible is part of the skull so it doesn’t move independently, but the lower mandible is separate from skull so can be opened and closed at will.

Cone-shaped bill

A cone-shaped bill can be slender like on the Brown-headed Nuthatch or stout as found on the Northern Cardinal. Cone-shaped bills are useful for cracking open seeds and nuts, and the large stout bills on some birds can be quite powerful. The slender bill of a nuthatch is useful for spearing seeds open like a sharp pick.

Slender	Stout
Cone-shaped bills

Dagger-shaped Bill

A dagger-shaped bill is long and pointed. It is used for spearing and probing, and is best developed in the herons and egrets. The length of a dagger-shaped bill allows it to reach food that is underwater or buried in the mud, while the stout base makes it a powerful spear.

Medium length dagger	Long dagger
Dagger-shaped bill

Curved-shaped Bill

Curved bills are usually very long and slender. They come in two types and allow a bird to reach deep into burrows and mud to catch invertebrates that are not accessible to other birds. A decurved bill curves downward like in an Ibis. A recurved bill curves upward like in an Avocet.

Decurved	Recurved
Curved-shaped bill

Hook-shaped Bill

The hooked bill is short and powerful and made for ripping and tearing prey items into smaller pieces. A hooked bill is characterized by a long upper mandible that extends and curves over the tip of the lower mandible.

Hooked	Hooked
Hooked-shaped bill

Needle-shaped Bill

A needle-like bill is long and narrow and used for sipping nectar from flowers. It is a characteristic bill of the hummingbirds. A needle-like bill is also useful for catching tiny insects, and for weaving the delicate nests that hummingbirds lay their eggs in.

Needle	Needle
Needle-shaped bill

Spatulate-shaped Bill

A spatulate bill is wide and flattened. It is especially useful for sifting through mud, but it also comes in handy for snipping off pieces of vegetation and catching aquatic insects. Spatulate bills are found on most of the ducks and geese.

Spatulate	Spatulate
Spatulate-shaped bill

The Head

There are 5 basic areas of a bird head that will help you identify it. These are:

• Eyering
• Crown
• Lores
• Supercillium
• Ear Patch (or auricular)

Outlined Head Topography		Head with no outline

Back to Top

Eyering

The eyering can be visualized, in many different birds, as a pale ring of feathers encircling the eye. It is a very narrow ring which may not be very clear from a greater distance. An eyering can be complete like the Virginia’s Warbler or broken into crescents like the MacGillivray’s Warbler.

Eyering	Eyering Complete	Eyering Broken
Eyering