SO, YOU'D LIKE TO BECOME A BIRDER? (10/25/02)

So, you’d like to join the ranks of birdwatchers! You want not only to identify birds that come to your feeder but to be able also to go for a neighborhood walk and know what birds you’re seeing and hearing. Or, better yet, you’d like to go anywhere in Massachusetts and recognize the birds you see and hear. You want to know how to get going, where to start. It’s not as tough as you might think, but like any sport, there are procedural steps to follow.

The first is to make sure you have a proper field guide. Without the latest, you’re in left field when you should be at home plate. The ones I now recommend are Birds of North America by Kenn Kaufman, Field Guide to the Birds East of the Mississippi by R.T. Peterson and Stokes Field Guide to the Birds, Eastern region. I choose these because Kaufman’s has graphically-enhanced graphics and ease of use, Peterson and Stokes because they are limited to our eastern birds and don’t mix in the western species. Whether you are a wannabe birder or an expert, you need at least one, and possibly two, of these.

Whichever you choose, you must read it often from cover to cover and not just turn to it when you want to identify a specific bird. You want to become familiar with the order of the birds, so that you know where sparrows are in relationship to robins and whether herons are near the front or the back of the guide. While the order may seem puzzling to you at first, it is a scientific order, showing what the latest DNA indicates are the most primitive birds to the most developed. One look at an anhinga’s picture should remind you of the reptile precursors of birds!

Field guides contain much information that is essential to really learning about birds, but one of the most important is not the field marks but the distribution of each species. It is fairly safe to assume that any bird you see will be in its proper location and not a stray from abroad or the western part of the continent. Other books give more detail about behavior, an equally important aspect of getting to know the birds. For instance, if you’re looking into a large tree and notice several small birds constantly in motion, you should know that these are likely warblers and not sparrows or finches or thrushes. Similarly, if you observe birds hopping around on the ground, you are not going to think “warblers.”

A field guide alone is not all you need to start up the learning curve. Last year I reviewed and highly recommended Cornell’s The FeederWatcher’s Guide to Bird Feeding by Barker and Griggs. It has vital information that supplements that of the field guide. Additionally, however, you need another invaluable tool, one of bird songs. There are many tapes and CDs today. One that I think is quite useful is the Identiflyer, a player which uses interchangable SongCards to play digital birdsong recordings. Whatever you choose, play it over and over — and over. Select one that covers only our area of the country rather than the whole USA. There are also amazing CD-ROMs with every possible type of visual and audio information about North American birds on them.

Many folks learn a lot about birds by just going to a woods or meadows or the shore and studying what’s about without anyone’s help. You can do that, or you can take a short cut and join other birders on a field trip. Many beginners hesitate to do that, as they are fearful that they will make a fool of themselves or that they’ll hold up the group — or whatever worry they can summon. There’s no need for that. Leaders welcome beginners, and your eyes are just as useful as anyone else’s. Many local organizations, such as the Cape Cod Bird Club, offer field trips, most of which are publicized in local publications. If you join the club, you will receive regular mailings about upcoming outings and programs.

The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and Mass Audubon’s sanctuaries also offer walks, but these organizations offer something else as well: weekly outings with the same leader. That is a sure-fired way to get up to speed with birding knowledge! Go to meetings and programs of these organizations, even if the subject seems a bit far out for you. Birds of Africa or Peru will whet your appetite for more knowledge, and you’ll have a chance to meet people with similar interests.

You couldn’t choose a better time to get started learning about birds. There are so many tools to help you learn and so many others who are joining the ranks of birders. Just go to any store specializing in birdwatching supplies and you’ll find an overwhelming number of books about birds. For books describing birds’ behavior, I recommend any by Lillian and Don Stokes.

However, I’d say, if you are a beginner, don’t get too many bird books until you can identify subjects about which you’d like to know more.

So, now that I hope I’ve pumped you up, I’ll look for you on a field trip!