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Non-office birdwatching
Oct. 29th, 2020 02:19 pmThe goldfinches have become regulars. I guess I'll slowly accumulate a "stable" of local residents who drop by. But today's bird was on my bike ride, not in the yard. A flash of black and white stripes and a medium-large body going up into the branches of a tree the other side of the canal can only be a red-shouldered hawk. I've seen one in that area before -- quite possibly the same one, though they aren't entirely rare around here.
For you non-birdwatchers in the audience (birdwatchers all know this), 90% of bird ID is knowing what species are likely to be in your area and knowing a few minor "tells" to differentiate. You don't need to see the whole bird, or to be looking directly at it, if you can triangulate on general shape and size, then add in a couple bits of behavior and a key visual or two.
A red-shouldered hawk is, first and foremost, a "large bird" in the general range of possible bird sizes. In my area, there's no more than a dozen possible "large birds". Some can be easily eliminated on the basis of gross physical and behavioral characteristics (e.g., herons/egrets, geese). Some can be easily eliminated on the basis of more subtle habitat/behavior (a turkey vulture isn't going to be flying up into the interior of a branchy tree). That takes us to the point where color and pattern become relevant. Crows (much much less likely to find ravens locally) are distinctly solid black. Red-tails (especially juveniles) can be very non-descript brown, if you don't get a good look at the tail from the right angle. But red-shoulders have a striking black-and-white striped tail, which is far more useful in most cases than trying to look for the red shoulder patches that give it its name. A Cooper's hawk (or a sharp-shinned hawk, if you don't have a good size metric in your glimpse) will also have a stripey tail, but it's not as flashy, and besides which, Coops have a different flight pattern than the buteos. A Coopers hawk flying into a branchy tree will still be flapping its wings and maneuvering, while a redtail or redshoulder will have less wing action inside the tree and mostly count on momentum to get it to a good perch.
Wow, you're saying, that's a lot of detail to keep track of! But the thing is, you don't learn all those "tells" as your first line of ID. You start by IDing birds in clear view and mostly static. But after you've ID'ed them, you watch as the fly off, or move within the landscape, and you begin attaching those "tells' to your mental model of the bird. Eventually you get to a point where you can ID a bird purely from its flight pattern when it's a black silhouette against the evening sky. You see the large bird soaring overhead from the corner of your eye and know by the way it "wobbles" that it can't be anything other than a turkey vulture. (At least, if you live in an area where turkey vultures are the only soaring bird that wobbles like that.)
For you non-birdwatchers in the audience (birdwatchers all know this), 90% of bird ID is knowing what species are likely to be in your area and knowing a few minor "tells" to differentiate. You don't need to see the whole bird, or to be looking directly at it, if you can triangulate on general shape and size, then add in a couple bits of behavior and a key visual or two.
A red-shouldered hawk is, first and foremost, a "large bird" in the general range of possible bird sizes. In my area, there's no more than a dozen possible "large birds". Some can be easily eliminated on the basis of gross physical and behavioral characteristics (e.g., herons/egrets, geese). Some can be easily eliminated on the basis of more subtle habitat/behavior (a turkey vulture isn't going to be flying up into the interior of a branchy tree). That takes us to the point where color and pattern become relevant. Crows (much much less likely to find ravens locally) are distinctly solid black. Red-tails (especially juveniles) can be very non-descript brown, if you don't get a good look at the tail from the right angle. But red-shoulders have a striking black-and-white striped tail, which is far more useful in most cases than trying to look for the red shoulder patches that give it its name. A Cooper's hawk (or a sharp-shinned hawk, if you don't have a good size metric in your glimpse) will also have a stripey tail, but it's not as flashy, and besides which, Coops have a different flight pattern than the buteos. A Coopers hawk flying into a branchy tree will still be flapping its wings and maneuvering, while a redtail or redshoulder will have less wing action inside the tree and mostly count on momentum to get it to a good perch.
Wow, you're saying, that's a lot of detail to keep track of! But the thing is, you don't learn all those "tells" as your first line of ID. You start by IDing birds in clear view and mostly static. But after you've ID'ed them, you watch as the fly off, or move within the landscape, and you begin attaching those "tells' to your mental model of the bird. Eventually you get to a point where you can ID a bird purely from its flight pattern when it's a black silhouette against the evening sky. You see the large bird soaring overhead from the corner of your eye and know by the way it "wobbles" that it can't be anything other than a turkey vulture. (At least, if you live in an area where turkey vultures are the only soaring bird that wobbles like that.)
