About half of the phone calls that come into the shop are from people looking for help identifying a bird or to report a new or rare bird; often it’s a little bit of both. Like the calls reporting a rare Chestnut-backed Chickadee often turn into a helpful hand identifying their sighting as a Boreal Chickadee, after a quick check of the range maps. Then there’s the baby flicker report that turns out the be a fairly rare Red-bellied Woodpecker, usually accompanied by, “But it doesn’t have a red belly though.” The Red-bellied Woodpecker is one of the species that were named for a feature that was most visible when the bird was really close, like in your hand on it’s back right after you shot it.
Prior to 1934 when a young man named Roger Tory Peterson wrote his first Field Guide to the Birds, most ornithologists studied birds over the barrel of a shot gun. It was then examined at length and identifications were made on such things as size, width of tail bands and length of tarsus. This worked for a very long time but had it’s draw backs, besides being hard on the bird, study was limited to the range of your shotgun. The best ornithologist was likely to be a good marksman, Audubon was very handy with a shot gun, but judging by many of his paintings, spent very little time observing the bird while it was still alive. He would first shoot his subject then prop them up in very unnatural positions as models for his paintings.
With Peterson’s guide, birds were shown as they would look at a distance through binoculars with arrows that would draw your eye to the field marks that differentiate one species from a similar one. Exact size was less important, you’re urged to notice if the bird is crow sized, robin sized, goose sized, it’s next to impossible to tell if a bird is 9 ¼ inches long unless he’s laying on his back beside a ruler. It’s nice to know which species is half an inch larger in case you ever see them on the same branch, other than that, don’t obsess.
Since 1934 the popularity of bird watching has grown exponentially, you can sharpen your skills almost anywhere, anytime. A boring barbeque at the in-laws? Take everybody’s kids for a walk, while they’re picking wild flowers for their mothers you can scan the sky for raptors, check the neighbours feeders and bird houses to see what might show up, and you no longer have to blast a cardinal off your mother-in-laws new sunflower feeder to be able to identify it...very unpopular at family functions.
The biggest thing to come along since the Peterson System may very well turn out to be the smart phone, if you’re having trouble identifying a bird, you could easily have five different field guides, complete with sound and video right in your shirt pocket, all the time. Still having trouble? Take it’s picture and post it on Twitter, Facebook and Flicker, you could surf the net, or even use the phone for it’s intended purpose, and call a friend for a consult. There’s really no need for a shot gun any more, and judging from book sales in our shop, little need for a hard copy book either. I hear debates all the time if the book will be replaced by technology, I’d have to say yes, at least in the bird watching world. I recently got copies of a brand new field guide, a local naturalist (formerly a sucker for any new book) spotted it on my shelf, flipped through it, said it was great and that he can’t wait for the iPhone app to be released.
I read a term today in a Cornell University newsletter, “Citizen Science”, I liked it right away. Now with a cheap pair of binoculars and a hand-me-down field guide, a Joe Schmo like me can make an actual contribution. Many of you already have by participating in the Christmas Bird Count, Project Feeder Watch, Nest Watch, the Great Backyard Bird Count, Breeding Bird Surveys or by simply posting your sightings on a site such as Nature NB. Some people are installing nest cameras and uploading the images to the internet. Now volunteers are sorting through 8 million images on a site called CamClickr. This is extremely valuable information and most of these projects would never happen without the involvement of the thousands of ordinary people. There’s a place for everyone, no matter your skill level.
So...the Red-bellied Woodpecker is one of those birds that were named for a feature that we rarely see, because like most woodpeckers, that part of the belly is usually pushed firmly against a tree trunk. You can see it if they are perched on a branch, but the easiest way to see this trait on a live bird is looking through an almost empty suet cage at the birds belly.
The Ring-necked Duck and the Orange-crowned Warbler are others that were likely named during the shot gun era. The duck really should have been called the Ring-billed Duck, (mainly because that’s what I always end up calling it when I most want to appear intelligent) after it’s most prominent feature, I wonder if it wasn’t just written down wrong after a lengthy ornithological meeting and never got corrected.
I get quite a few calls reporting Orange-crowned Warblers, and they’re always tricky. I have to ask why do you think you have an Orange-crowned? Usually answered with, “Because it has an orange head.” My most memorable call ever came from a gentleman who thought I was nuts, I said if you see an orange head it’s likely something else, you rarely see the orange head, especially in winter. I tried to get him to check out the most likely suspect, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. He said his guide showed the warblers orange head. I said they sometimes try to emphasize field marks in the artist rendering. He said, “So you’re saying the Orange-crowned Warbler doesn’t have an orange head, OK, thanks for your time.” He put the phone down, but it didn’t disconnect, I heard him growl, “That guy doesn’t know anything, where’s that other number.”
Thanks guys, I wonder how you go about petitioning to have a birds name changed.
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