KITSAP BIRDING

By gene bullock/Columnist

The bright colors and exuberant songs of our backyard birds are irresistible to many of us. We love to feed and watch them.

For some, it’s a relaxing pastime that makes us feel more in touch with nature. For others, it’s a rewarding hobby filled with seasonal surprises. You never know what might show up at your feeders.

Many of us relish the challenge of learning to identify local birds by sound and sight, and get endless satisfaction from adding to our knowledge and skills. It’s also a social pursuit for those who love sharing their passion for birds with like-minded friends and family.

But getting started can be frustrating. Imagine flipping through the pages of a comprehensive field guide to match that yellow bird you just saw. With more than 800 species in the U.S., the job of identifying a new bird can be overwhelming. But there are better ways to get started, and helpful friends and community groups that offer fun ways to build your skills and nurture your learning experience.

Learning to identify birds takes practice. You learn mainly by doing. But it involves more than passive observation. The famed birding maven Peter Dunne advises not going into the field with an open mind, but instead, preparing yourself by learning how to see and what to look for.

Birds have learned to survive by adapting to particular food sources and the habitats that provide them. The size and shape of their bills provide an important clue to their livelihoods and diets. They also belong to families that share similar appearance and behavior. Backyard seed and suet feeders are a great place to start. If you focus on the families of birds most likely to come to your seed and suet feeders, you will greatly improve your chances of identifying them.

The local birds you can expect to see at your backyard seed and suet feeders are fairly predictable, including finches, juncos, chickadees, grosbeaks, jays and woodpeckers. They also have distinctive songs you can learn by visiting the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website, www.allaboutbirds.org.

It’s often helpful to create memory hooks to help you remember specific songs, such as the scolding “chickadee-dee-dee” of the black-capped chickadee or the slurred songs of the black-headed grosbeak, which some describe as a robin that has taken voice lessons.

You’ll definitely want a good field guide, and there are many available. “Birds of Puget Sound,” coauthored by Robert Morse and Dennis Paulson, is an especially good choice for the beginner because it includes only the 200 birds you are most likely to see in our region.

You’ll also need a good set of binoculars. They can range in price from $50 to $3,000. The general rule is to buy the best binoculars you can afford; but beginners can find adequate pairs for under $200. You can find excellent online tutorials on choosing binoculars (www.allaboutbirds.org). It’s a good idea to stick with magnifications of 7 or 8 and a closest focusing distance of not more than 10 feet. Higher magnifications shrink the depth of field and field of view, making it harder to quickly find birds and focus.

I’ve barely touched on this subject, but I hope I’ve teased you into digging deeper. Kitsap Audubon’s monthly field trips (www.kitsapaudubon.org) target some of the region’s best birding areas. The trips are free and open to all skill levels. They are led by skilled birders who enjoy sharing their skills and knowledge with beginning birders.

— Gene Bullock is newsletter editor for Kitsap Audubon. Contact him at genebullock@comcast.net.