> I personally don’t use any of these electronic gadgets for bird IDs, in fact > I wouldn’t know how to switch one on, let alone cart the thing around with > me. Isn’t it better to really get to know your birds?, then these > thingamajigs are not needed. Having to carry binoculars is bad enough as it is. Gadgets aren’t for everyone but one more great tool for getting to really know your birds. Below are a list of good ways that I’ve tried, use regularly, seen others do or heard about: * Put a seed tray near your window and watch what comes in closely. (How so many of us first saw birds as children, I’d assume.) * Go out with binoculars and watch birds from a hide, shore, etc. * Go out with a guide or group and learn from others. I can’t think of anything more effective. * Take others out and show them what you know. * Write about what you know, meaning field notes on behavior and field identification. I don’t learn much from saying “I saw a Square-tailed Kite today” but I would from writing up how I would try and distinguish a Little Eagle from a Whistling Kite. * Sketch or paint what you see! Probably the best technique of all for individual study…I’m sadly wretched at it. Even still, just making the effort to transcribe visual details visually can be a real help in improving your “seeing”. * Buy better optics 😉 Man, I wish I’d gotten good binoculars sooner. * Use a camera to snap pictures and then go home and study the results. I’ve gotten a lot from this: — It’s very helpful for harder groups as you can often narrow down something like a pair of peeps to one of 2-4 species. From there you can study the guides and figure out what field marks are relevant for the next time. — Huh. I. Could. Have. Sworn. It. Had. Two. *White*. Wing-bars. And. A. *Yellow*. Bill. Yeah, a picture can keep you honest. A fish-watching friend said that with the fishes, it is incredibly easy to remember colors in reverse – she pops up to the surface and narrates a description to try and get it fixed in her head. * Build a database and collect images, sounds and text about the birds. I don’t think this technique is broadly useful but since I’m a programmer, I end up putting a lot of time into this several times a year. (Particularly before a trip to a new place.) Apart from helping to learn species, it’s helped me *enormously* learning larger taxonomic and biogeographical relationships. Anyone can make themselves a series of folders to collect info about a species, if they like that sort of thing. * Go out into the field and wait until you can match sounds to birds. (I’m really not great at calls..but I slowly get better.) * Sonograms…or so I’m told…I’ve managed to get a copy of “The Sound Approach to Birding” but it’s still sitting on the desk. * Get and use an app. Why not? When I first saw a good birding app, I realized they’re the future. They’re better than paper: — Integrated sounds. — Plates *and* photographs. I’ve never loved an all-photo paper guide but I love my apps with pictures. — Off-line access. (Well, paper has that…) — A structured information space. A lot of phone/tablet apps are, well, sort of pointless but not apps that create a nice, tight information space. With a birding app, you can move through data hierarchically, laterally (like similar species or groups of related birds), geographically (if the app has the data), or non-sequentially (search for a bird.) — Particularly useful when you travel to a new country where you don’t know the birds. You can study up before you arrive and have a good idea about calls of common birds and what various groups look like, what habitat they prefer, etc. Yeah, apps are great for this…paper guides too. There are a few advantages to paper guides that are hard to beat: — No batteries. — Not so expensive. — I find it easier to flip through a paper guide somehow. Particularly for a country where I don’t already know the birds. There’s something hard-to-replace about feeling “wow, 16 plates for raptors!” that just doesn’t come across electronically. I’m hoping to get the new iPad Mini because I suspect that it is the ultimate birding gadget. I still buy, use and carry paper guides…but I’m reluctant to travel anywhere that doesn’t have an electronic guide. And, I carry fewer paper guides than I used to. With all of that said, to each their own. If you find electronic guides useful, great. If not, that’s fine too. Also, no all electronic guides are created equal any more than paper guides are of identical quality. =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au http://birding-aus.org ===============================
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