{"id":1815,"date":"2022-10-12T11:11:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T15:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbannaturestore.blog\/?p=1815"},"modified":"2022-10-12T11:11:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T15:11:00","slug":"bird-identification-simplified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/2022\/10\/12\/bird-identification-simplified\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird Identification Simplified<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So many of us have looked at a bird and had no idea what it was, or heard the name of a bird and thought, well, that makes no sense at all.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not forget all those little brown birds.\u00a0 Becoming familiar with a bird’s topography will help you with identification.\u00a0Field guides<\/a> are great, but you may not have one with you when you see a bird you don\u2019t recognize.\u00a0 I will try and make this a bit easier for you with simple descriptions of what to look for along with some examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Head <\/strong>– a bird\u2019s head consists of the lore, the area between its bill and eye, the crown, the top of its head, and the nape which is below the crown.\u00a0 When looking at a bird’s head you will want to take notice of any eye rings or eye bars.\u00a0 Eye bars may be located on either side of the eye, or above the eye similar to an eye brow.\u00a0 Crowns are where they should be, on the top of their heads.\u00a0 Examples of birds named for their crown are white-crowned sparrows, ruby, and yellow-crowned kinglets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back<\/strong> – the area below the nape.\u00a0 When birds are perched their backs are covered by their wings making them visible only when birds are in flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rump<\/strong> – the rump is also covered by a bird\u2019s wings but can help with identification in flight.\u00a0 This is the case with a yellow-rumped warbler.\u00a0 When you see a northern flicker, look for its brilliant white rump as it takes flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upper Tail Coverts<\/strong> – these are the feathers that cover the base of the tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tail<\/strong> – observing tails can also help with identification.\u00a0 Take note if the tail is long or short, forked or squared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Downy Woodpecker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now we\u2019ll move on to the area of the bill and below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill or beak<\/strong> – sizes and shapes of bills are also important to help determine identification.\u00a0 Take for example the hairy and downy woodpecker.\u00a0 They\u2019re easy to identify when they\u2019re side by side, but seen separately, you should look at the size of their bill, the hairy woodpecker\u2019s bill is much longer than the downy\u2019s.\u00a0 The colour of the bill is also something to take note of.\u00a0 Shapes of a bill can be coned, hooked, needle-like, long, decurved, dagger or spatulate (like a duck).\u00a0 The shape of the beak determines what their diet consists of.\u00a0 Birds of prey will have a hooked beak, while seed, fruit, nut, and nectar feeding bird\u2019s bills will be different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hairy Woodpecker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Chin and Throat<\/strong> – the chin is located directly below the beak and feathers there are often hard to see.\u00a0 The throat however can have markings to help with ID.\u00a0 An example of this would be the white-throated sparrow and ruby-throated hummingbird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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white-crowned sparrow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Breast, sides and flank<\/strong> – next on our list are the breast, sides and flanks.\u00a0 There are many distinguished markings on bird\u2019s breasts that can help us to recognize them.\u00a0 They could be a solid colour, spotted, or streaked.\u00a0 Colours can also extend into the flanks under the wings which can be observed during flight.\u00a0 This is the case with the rose-breasted grosbeak.\u00a0 The shades of red on the flank can only be seen as they fly away from our feeders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belly<\/strong> – this is the area below the breast and flanks which is also difficult to see except in flight.\u00a0 Getting back to my earlier comment on a bird\u2019s name, let\u2019s talk about the red-bellied woodpecker.\u00a0 Many of you will see it more as a red-headed woodpecker, but it\u2019s not.\u00a0 There is a faint redness on the belly, hence the name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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red-bellied woodpecker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Legs and Feet<\/strong> – these are considered to be the bare parts of a bird, however birds of prey can have distinguished feathers on their legs.\u00a0 Legs and feet won\u2019t help us too much with identifying songbirds as they\u2019re all pretty much the same with three forward facing toes and one hind facing.\u00a0 The colour and length of legs would be the only thing to check for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wings<\/strong> –\u00a0 wings can help us with identification.\u00a0 Look for the size and shape of the wing.\u00a0 It is long or short, pointed, angled, are there tips on the edge?\u00a0 Wing bars can also assist us.\u00a0 The male red-winged blackbird is a good example with its bright red and yellow epaulettes, or the american goldfinch with its white wing bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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male red-winged blackbird<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are other factors to help us sort through who is who.  Noting the size of the bird is helpful.  Is it small like a sparrow, mid-sized similar to a cardinal, or larger like a blue jay or grackle.  Is it a slim bird or a little plump?   Location of where you saw the bird helps too, forest edge, woodlands, parks or shorebirds.  Does it visit your feeder, or eat berries from your garden bushes?  Learning to identify bird songs can also be very beneficial.  Also note what time of year you see certain birds, whether they\u2019re summer  or winter visitors,  year-round residents, or just passing through during migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope this information is helpful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy Birding,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jane Paradis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brand Ambassador <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So many of us have looked at a bird and had no idea what it was, or heard the name of a bird and thought, well, that makes no sense at all.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not forget all those little brown birds.\u00a0 Becoming familiar with a bird’s topography will help you with identification.\u00a0Field guides are great, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,60,61,76,30,17,31],"class_list":["post-1815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uns-birding-blog","tag-birdseeds","tag-birdwatching","tag-canadawildbirding","tag-unsbirds","tag-unsblogs","tag-urbannaturestore","tag-winterbirds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}