Birds Meet: From Newbie to Pro - Beginner's Guide to Bird Watching and ID
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- Опубликовано: 29 май 2023
- Get ready to up your birding game with our speaker for May, Sean Dooley. Sean is the National Public Affairs Manager for BirdLife Australia - which means he gets to talk to a lot of people about a lot of birds and the issues they face. He is also a proud bird nerd who is keen to share his knowledge and ignite the love of birds in others.
In this session Sean will give you all his tips for beginning your life as a birder, what equipment you might need and how to go about building your skills. 
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Awesome introduction to this world, Sean.
Thanks BA.
Sean is articulate, knowledgeable and personable. I valued his points about 'one bird at a time' and making observation notes so you don't mix up observation of a new bird with a bird guide's entry for it. Beyond that, the only visual aid, in a video about a visual skill, was an illegible notebook held up to the camera. I can imagine that an image of a sharpie along with a red-necked stint in a slide ringed by other shore birds would allow us to see what's common and what's not between comparison pairs and graphically demonstrate his point about getting one or two birds of a group lodged in the brain..
The biggest challenge I found as a beginner was going from a bird observed in the field to hunting for it among the hundreds in a field guide. I usually got lost in the possibilities. But there's a big help available, an intermediate step: birds can be grouped according to habitat type and the shape of a typical group member. The Australian Bird Guide presents these groupings inside the front cover. The P&K app offers a filter system: location, habitat, shape and plumage.
There's another point to be made: that positive ID in many cases isn't possible. We can't see enough of the bird, particularly of the small details that distinguish it from similar species or subspecies.
I find the most difficult way to identify birds is by their calls. I don't mean the familiar and very visible birds. It's the ones that are shy and difficult to see, heard often but never seen. Descriptions of bird calls in the bird books can be impossible to assign to what you've just heard. Apps aren't much better.
Calls are such a tricky one aren't they! Everyone's interpretation of what it can sound like varies - and then you even have regional dialects to consider. Many apps have calls inbuild now, but you have to go through and search for them, and there are some sound ID apps out that are getting better in their accuracy. The other site to check out is xeno-canto.org/ - as it has a huge number of audio files, but again it doesn't ID the bird for you.
Yes it is maybe impossible to describe in text a bird sound.
I find the descriptions no help too.
I saw a grey falcon on my first attempt - at Bowra.
Great talk. I missed this live presentation. Is there a way to be notified about future meets? Thanks
So far I have been engaged for 6n minutes and have had self promoting talk by 2 humans & ZERO birds.
Hi Thanks for giving us access to the webinar I have an unusual question why do some birds hop and others walk very perplexing would appreciate your reply.Thanks Robyn Walker
I want to find the results of the latest bird count.
Could you please share some recommended apps for bird identification?
Merlin
I think it's strange that Australia seems to have much more birds especially city birds than Auckland has compared to Sydney, even though New Zealand wildlife is almost all birds.
Unfortunately, I found this hard to follow and pull out the main points to hang on to. Perhaps I'm just simple.