How to Identify Birds by their Topography

Video Transcript

"One of the things that is particularly important or useful as you start to think about identifying birds is to understand the topography of the bird the varies parts that is significant in terms in how we use them to deficient one species from another. Most of the field guides these days typically include a illustration or a often several depict the bird, there varies prominent body parts, sometimes the wings are spread or they may be other features that are important to notice. I have my little friend here in the form of a buffett head this is a wide spread little duck species that we see commonly here in Massachusetts in the winter and the buffett head is a good example of one that we can point out some of the features that are useful in terms to things to notice when we see a unfamiliar bird. The beak or the bill is structure that is particularly important to notice this applies to not just to duck which has sort of a broad rounded somewhat flatten bill. But obviously all the small song birds have bill shapes that are quiet different. Some are slim and pointed and some are thick and stalk for cracking seeds. Others are in some species birds curve that could be down curve the way that we see in some of the song birds like the wind brow could be recovered where they actually turn up in species like the American avocet so bill structure is important to notice. The head generally is a very significant part of the birds and the pattern of the head, the shape of the head, some bird species have a crest like the bluejay or the cardinal, the buffett head has sort of a rounded fold puffy looking head which is actually where the bird arrived its name. The position of the eyes in some cases the eyes could look very forward position and in some other cases the eyes may be further back on the head. If we go to the wings which are difficult to see when the wings are folded but the wings themselves include two primary groups of feathers the outer most of which are in fact called primaries these are the long flat feathers when the birds wing is extended are the outer portion of the wing and then the inner portion of the birds wing which we would call the elbow to the birds body are the secondary. So the primary feathers and the secondary feathers on the wings are very important. On some species of birds the smaller feathers in this fascinate that cover the bases of the longer flat feathers are called covers and there are greater, medium, and lesser cover which is in varies species of birds are different colors so the presents of absents are coloration on the covers could be a useful feature. The tail is something while in the buffet heat is not terribly significant as a field mark. In some other duck species for example particular the female called mallard the tail is brown, the outer tail feather would be white. "