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From: jahayes@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: OUTDOOR:Help with identification
Message-ID: <4033.27ccf25e@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>
Date: 28 Feb 91 17:06:54 GMT
References: <21421@teda.UUCP>
Lines: 51

In article <21421@teda.UUCP>, jeffy@teda.UUCP (Jeffrey Youngstrom) writes:
> Heya,
> 	I'm new to bird watching and to this newsgroup.
> 
> 	The main thing I'm looking for is a book along the same lines
> 	as Botanical and Entomological identification guides I've seen
> 	in the past which provide a series of questions about the
> 	specimen in question leading you along a decision tree with the
> 	eventual outcome (in a perfect world :-) of a positive
> 	identification.  Are there books like this for birds?  (Titles,
> 	I need titles! :-)

So what you're looking for is a dichotomous key for bird i.d. Such
things do exist, but frankly, field identification rarely allows the
kind of character differentiation that is necessary...you get to
see three or four fieldmarks, and then it flies away and you leaf
through your field guides.

You will find that you will rapidly develop a "gestalt" ability, so
just glancing at a bird you'll be able to narrow it down to something
(for example) duck-ish, or warbler/vireo-ish, or woodpecker-ish...and
then you'll have narrowed it down to only a few plates (in my book,
it'd be about 10, 20, and 4, respectively, for the classes above).

I use the current Golden Guide; the pictures are fine, especially for
a beginner (although it lacks some species that apparently are cur-
rently recognized - the Western Grebe has been split, and I never knew!).
Different people use different guides. Go to a bookstore, or better yet,
a nature bookstore, and check out their stock. REI has a fair selection,
as does the Nature Company (both Berkeley stores). 

> 	Anyway, the bird I saw yesterday walking around in the grass
> 	common area at my apartment complex (This is San Francisco Bay
> 	area) eating something out of the grass was about the size of a
> 	large Robin and about the shape of a young chicken (minimal
> 	tail, and stocky), jet black chest, rich brown back and wings
> 	with black speckles and a bright yellow-orange beak.  Legs
> 	were, I think, black.  I leafed through my Field Guide to
> 	Western Birds but didn't find anything that looked likely.
> 	Anybody know?
> 
Yep. Sounds like European Starlings to me; they can be surprisingly
beautiful in sunlight, all iridescent...but they are exotics, and
therefore difficult to find in the field guides sometimes. We had 
a flock of about 100 yesterday in our backyard, hopping and waddling
like a bunch of fat old men.

Josh Hayes, Zoology, Miami U (Ohio)
jahayes@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
..and while your at it, keep the nightlight on inside that birdhouse
in your soul. (They Might Be Giants)