Information Density: Ornithology – Signal Evidence & AI Readability

Authoritative Information about Wild Birds from a Professional OrnithologistBlog Posts

[H2] Authoritative Information about Wild Birds from a Professional Ornithologist
Ornithology.com, the Science of Ornithology (birds) has been consulted by BBC, National Geographic, ABC News,Weather Notebook, Organic Gardening, National Public Radio, Fox TV, National Canadian Television, Vanity Fair Magazine, the Guinness Book of World Records, The Weakest Link, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, NCSI, Real Simple Magazine, the Detroit Free Press, Voice of America, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Columbia News Service, BBC films, and many other publications, programs, agencies, and individuals for authoritative information on wild birds. The Ornithologist, Roger J. Lederer, at Ornithology.com has a Ph.D., taught for over thirty years, wrote thirty scientific papers and eleven books, including: Amazing Birds (in seven languages), Birds of New England, Bird Finder, Pacific Coast Bird Finder, Latin for Bird Lovers,  Beaks, Bones, and Birdsongs, and Birds: Ornithology and the Great Bird Artists. Dr. Lederer has also been keynote speaker at bird festivals, on many cruise lines, and hundreds of other venues.
Roger Lederer, the Ornithologist
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How to Birdwatch
Are you a frustrated amateur ornithologist because you can’t identify all the birds at your feeder, in the woods, along the roadside, or at the beach? Grab your hiking gear and read on for some quick tips for beginning birders. Be encouraged by the fact that you can learn at your own speed, be social or alone while you learn, can birdwatch most anywhere, and physical disabilities are only minor issues.
So read on and start a new avocation.
1. Be sure you have a decent pair of binoculars and have adjusted and practiced using them. See the Binoculars page. 2. Always locate a bird first with your naked eye. The field of view through binoculars is much narrower, making it harder to search. 3. Consider colors a bonus. Except under the best of conditions, it is hard to see feather colors accurately. Light reflection and shadows often distort, dull, or exaggerate colors. Consider other factors first. Of course, there are species for which accurate color determination is essential for accurate identification. 4. Size is helpful, but conditions can be misleading. A bird soaring overhead or flying by may seem much larger or smaller than reality. A reference object is helpful – a tree, fence post, telephone pole, etc. Observe the shape or profile of the bird. A long-bill, long legs, or tufted head immediately eliminates many possibilities. 5. Habitat is always a useful consideration. In the midst of a coniferous forest you expect to see a different set of birds (avifauna) than you would on an ocean shore or in a city park. 6.Note the behavior. Wading in shallow water, climbing a tree trunk, swimming, diving through the air, emerging from a mud nest, or sitting on a fence post, all narrow the choices down considerably.7. Songs and calls are excellent identification mechanisms and sometimes the only way to distinguish them in the field by their calls; and it is not uncommon to hear birds but not be able to find them. This takes a lot more practice than learning visual characters. I find it easiest to learn songs and calls if I am able to watch the bird singing or calling. 8. Use a good field guide as they identify characteristics (field marks) most helpful to identification.
9. Finally, my most important recommendation for the beginning birdwatcher: go out in the field with those folks who know the birds. If you don’t have a friend who does, there is most likely a local Audubon Society nearby. And next time you travel, you can find a local birder who will show you around. You can also meet traveling birders who are interested in your area. Connect with a local birder who knows the local hot spots and have a great time birding. For world travelers, visit Birding Pal.
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Glossary of Birdwatching Slang Understanding Birdwatcher’s Language
Birdwatching 10 Glossary of Birdwatching Slang
Pictures of Common North American BirdsBirding BasicsBirding with KidsAn Introduction to BirdwatchingBinocular informationPBS’ BirdwatchWikipediaBirdwatching DailyBirdwatching.comBirdwatcher’s DigestBirding Tips for FamiliesTop Five Birdwatching TipsBirdwatching for BeginnersSix Tips for Birding by EarBirdwatching VideosTwitcher’s VocabularyYou might be a birder if…
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7 thoughts on “Birdwatching – How to Bird Watch”

I think I saw and heard a killdeer (2). One was running in yard and then squatting down. I live in CT , middle of the state. Is this rare ?
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Is what rare? Killdeer or running and squatting down? Neither is rare
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I have three dead birds in my yard in 24 hours. I live in the Syracuse New York area and I’m just concerned what it might be.
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The skin covers the body of birds and produces feathers and a variety of other external structures: beak covering, wattles, comb, scales of feet and legs. The skin is thinner than mammals’ and attaches to the skeleton in a number of places: skull, beak, wrist, wing tips, dorsal side of the pelvis, tarsometatarsus, and toes. The general function of the skin is protective, the base of external features, and serves as a large sensory organ with receptors for temperature, pressure, and vibration. One or two glands at the base of the tail (uropygial glands) produce fatty secretions.
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Feathers are the one most distinguishing characteristic of birds. For many years it was thought that feathers evolved as an elongation of reptilian scales. It seemed to make sense because reptile scales and bird feathers have some chemical and structural components in common. It was thought that the scales got longer to serve first as insulation as reptiles and their bird descendants were developing homeothermy (homeothermy). But we were wrong on both counts. It appears that bird scales arose anew as novel structures and their purpose was not flight or insulation, but communication as these first feathers were useless for anything, but they were colored, indicating that they were some sort of signal.
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Caudipteryx
Here’s one of the first dinosaur fossils showing feather impressions.
Modified from Wikipedia: There are two basic types of feather: vaned feathers which cover the exterior of the body, and down feathers which are underneath the vaned feathers. The pennaceous feathers are vaned feathers. Also called contour feathers, pennaceous feathers arise from tracts and cover the entire body. A third rarer type of feather, the filoplume, is hairlike and (if present in a bird; they are entirely absent in ratites – large flightless birds) grows along the fluffy down feathers. In some passerines, filoplumes arise exposed beyond the contour feathers on the neck.[1] The remiges, or flight feathers of the wing, and rectrices, the flight feathers of the tail are the most important feathers for flight. A typical vaned feather features a main shaft, called the rachis. Fused to the rachis are a series of branches, or barbs; the barbs themselves are also branched and form the barbules. These barbules have minute hooks called barbicels for cross-attachment. Down feathers are fluffy because they lack barbicels, so the barbules float free of each other, allowing the down to trap air and provide excellent thermal insulation. At the base of the feather, the rachis expands to form the hollow tubular calamus (or quill) which inserts into a follicle in the skin. The basal part of the calamus is without vanes.
Flight feathers are stiffened so as to work against the air in the downstroke but yield in other directions. It has been observed that the orientation pattern of β-keratin fibers in the feathers of flying birds differs from that in flightless birds: the fibers are better aligned in the middle of the feather and less aligned towards the tips.
In the wing there are several categories of feathers, classified by their location and function. The outer primary feathers are attached to the hand bones and serve as propulsion mechanisms. The secondary feathers are attached to the ulna and serve mainly to provide lift. The tertial feathers are attached to the humerus and provide some lift but mainly fill the space between the body and the secondary feathers. Overlying the forward part of the main wing feathers are covert feathers, which also cover much of the body. Their purpose is partly insulation and decoration but mainly to streamline the bird’s body for flight.
Feathers insulate birds from water and cold temperatures. They may also be plucked to line the nest and provide insulation to the eggs and young. The individual feathers in the wings and tail play important roles in controlling flight. Some species have a crest of feathers on their heads. Although feathers are light, a bird’s plumage weighs two or three times more than its skeleton, since many bones are hollow and contain air sacs. Color patterns serve as camouflage against predators for birds in their habitats, and serve as camouflage for predators looking for a meal.  Striking differences in feather patterns and colors are part of the sexual dimorphism of many bird species and are particularly important in selection of mating pairs. In some cases there are differences in the UV reflectivity of feathers across sexes even though no differences in color are noted in the visible range.
All About Birds
All About Feathers
Bird Feathers
EcobirdsEverything You Need to Know About Feathers
Feather Atlas
Feathers
Molecular Feather Evolution
Feathers – Wikipedia
The Feathers Site
The Feather Trade
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2 thoughts on “Feathers”

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My name is Grace. I’m a senior in high school this year and I’ve loved birds since I was a kid. My grandma’s kitchen window looked out on her flower garden, and she would point out the different birds to me and tell me about them. I just wanted to say that I appreciate this site. In honor of my grandma and due to my own fervor, I’ve decided to pursue the study of birds in my own time.
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The ability of birds to fly and their warm-blooded metabolism has allowed them to colonize and take good advantage of a large variety of habitats. Only parts of the open ocean and the center of Antarctica are typically devoid of birds. There are about 10,000 species of birds in the world and different parts of the world have their own unique set of bird species; this unique assemblage is termed the avifauna of the areas.
The countries with the most diverse avifauna are Colombia with 1,821 bird species, Peru with 1,781, Brazil with 1,712, Indonesia with 1,604, and Ecuador with 1,515. You can get the full list here, but notice that rainforest countries have the greatest variety of bird species. Accordin gto some, though, the most popular countries for bird watching are the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Tanzania, and Botswana.
The IOC World Bird List lists the official English names for every bird in the world and is an extremely handy reference.
I have been to  100 countries and have watched birds in all of them. It’s hard to say which country or area of the world is the best to birdwatch in, but tropical areas certainly provide the best variety. I was especially impressed by the avifauna of Uganda, partly because of the variety and partly because the birds were so different than what I am used to seeing in the U.S. But go any distance from your home and you will find different bird species and different challenges in identifying them.
https://www.internationalornithology.org/
Africa AntarcticaAsia Australia / New ZealandCentral America
North America Indonesia / Malayasia Middle EastSouth America / Caribbean Europe World checklistFatbirder – links to birders all over the worldInternational Ornithological Congress Bird ChecklistSibley-Monroe Checklist of the Bird WorldWeb-Published Checklists of the Bird WorldWorld Bird Database – Avibase

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1 thought on “World Travel – Birds”

I love the migration of birds worldwide & I like making bird feed.
Thanks for the wisdom and enlightenment.
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