Index – Intro – Ch.1 – Ch.2 – Ch.3 – Ch.4 – Ch.5
Ch.6 – Ch.7 – Ch.8 – Ch.9 – Ch.10 – Ch.11 – Ch.12 – Ch.13
That’s the question asked by non-birders when in the company of someone they consider to be more knowledgeable than themselves. The problem is that I’m only a poor representative of the birder population, and as such my answer often has to be “I don’t know, but if I manage a picture I might find out and let you know in due time.” Which is then usually followed by posting the picture(s) in question on the Bird Forum, and more often than not come up with a verdict, even if the quality of the image may be rather poor.
The problem starts when I didn’t get a good look, and the fleeting glimpse was totally insufficient to manage a shot with my camera. At times like that, you realise that your handy box camera has a number of deficiencies, one of which is the time it takes for the lens to zoom out, the auto-focus to come into effect, and then re-find the bird in the view finder which appeared to be so obvious for the naked eye. Still, it’s either that, or being lumbered with something that doesn’t easily fit in your pocket.
Cameras and fast-moving birds can be quite infuriating, and the one thing you learn quite quickly is how sharp a bird’s eyesight is – and I do mean all of them, not just the birds of prey. That’s why, when you’re walking along in a nature reserve, you see loads of song birds flitting away into the hedges and undergrowth at a considerable distance. Often too far away to be able to see exactly what type of bird they are, and by the time you’ve reached the spot where you saw them fly away, there’s nothing left to see. Hence the frequency of moments when I can’t give a satisfactory answer to the “What’s that bird?” question.
Elaborating the visual acuity thing a bit more, one of the major concerns about trying to photograph birds is how easy it is to disturb them. Before I found out how to turn it off, the light in aid of focusing on your quarry was a big turn-off, and even now that I don’t have any visible light coming from my camera, many birds immediately twig when a camera is pointed at them. So if this alone puts them off or at least on their guard, imagine what a paparazzi-style assault must mean for them. Even a single camera set on continuous shooting is already sufficient for many birds to become jittery.
The other question I’m often being asked is “Did you see something?”, when in fact I’ve heard a bird sound and am trying to locate it. I’ve read somewhere the advice that you should always try and trace the originator of a bird song or call, that way you’ll make the link between bird and sound a solid one. Not sure if that always works though, and I’m sure that repeating the exercise multiple times is required to bring the message home. For instance I have seen and heard serins on several occasions in Spain and Italy, but because the exposure is only for a month a year, and to my knowledge I’ve never seen or heard any in Britain, the memory of their song fades over time, and I’ll have to remind myself again next time I visit the western Mediterranean.
Anyway, back to the topic of figuring out where a bird sits when you’ve heard them call. Except for birds like stonechats or robins who like to sit in prominent places, many other birds are skulkers, and when it comes to the master skulker like Cetti’s warbler, good luck to you. But even when they’re just your average inhabitant of the hedges or bushes, some birds appear to be good at making out that their call comes from anywhere but the place where they’re really sitting. I don’t know if this type of ventriloquism is common, or whether it’s just my tracking abilities that are faulty – maybe I expect a bird, because of the loudness of its voice, to be closer than it really is, and I should adjust my expectations accordingly.
Which brings me to another, but related, question: you would recognise a robin if you saw one, wouldn’t you? Well, yes and no. Once you’ve seen the red breast, a robin is unmistakeable, that’s for sure. But conditions are not always conducive to observing the bird properly. The light may be poor, the bird may be sitting in a hedge, or just have its back turned so you can’t see its breast. As for sounds, its alarm call may be indicative, but could be confused (at least by a less than experienced birder such as me) with similar sounds made by a wren or a stonechat, whereas its song should be obvious – however, not every robin you encounter will be as helpful to sing just to help you with the identification.
Index – Intro – Ch.1 – Ch.2 – Ch.3 – Ch.4 – Ch.5
Ch.6 – Ch.7 – Ch.8 – Ch.9 – Ch.10 – Ch.11 – Ch.12 – Ch.13
Marnix's Bird Gallery 