How to be a Birder BLOG 3 April 2025 – Identifying birds by appearance

As a beginner birder, every time you see a bird, you want to put a name to it. And that is very natural – we human beings are born with a desire to categorise and catalogue the world around us, and the starting point for birds is being able to identify and then name which species we are looking at. 

This goes deep into our ancestral biology: when our prehistoric forebears needed to know which plants were good to eat and which might be poisonous, and likewise which animals were good to eat – and which might kill them!

But putting the correct name to the bird you see is not the final story. By identifying a bird we open up a whole new world of understanding. As well as teaching you which bird is which, this will also give you a greater insight into birds’ daily lives, and ultimately make you a better birder.

Most birders, when faced with an unfamiliar bird, do one of four things. Some give up and move on to something else, taking the view that immature gulls, flying raptors, or ‘little brown jobs’, are simply impossible to identify correctly. Others use a little more initiative, and ask a more experienced birder to tell them what they’re looking at. A third category turn immediately to their field guide, searching until they have found the illustration that most closely matches the mystery bird.

You’ll still find that some individual birds prove difficult, perhaps even impossible, to identify. But whether you succeed or fail, you’ll have extended your knowledge; and with time and experience you should be able to identify with confidence most birds you see.

The good news is that in Europe or North America you are unlikely to regularly come across more than 100 or so species in the area around where you live. And you’ll know many of these already: birds like American Robin, Blue Jay and Northern Cardinal in Canada and the US, or European Robin, Blue Tit and Blackbird in the UK, are known by most people. 

And even when you are unsure as to the species, you’ll be able to work out which family most birds belong to: gulls, ducks, geese and swans are all pretty unmistakable. 

Easy, eh? Sadly not. That’s because birds are not items coming off a production line, with the same appearance all the time. 

So here are some of the common pitfalls:

• Same bird, different appearance: some birds have different plumages for males and females, or in summer and winter, or between adults and youngsters.

• Different birds, same appearance: some birds look remarkably similar to other species – sometimes even to those from different families.  Gulls can be especially tricky, as can female ducks. But the trickiest of all are the ‘little brown jobs’ – for example larks, buntings, pipits and sparrows can often look superficially similar both to other close relatives, and even to very distant ones.

• Freaks and oddballs: sometimes you see a bird that looks just like a very common and familiar species, but the plumage is completely different. This might be because they have aberrant feathering – patches of white or black, for example. Or they might be a sick or injured bird, whose plumage is different from the norm as a consequence. 

• Escapes: sometimes you come across a bird that you not only cannot recognise, but looks nothing like anything in your field guide. If so, consider escapes – birds not native to the country or region, or even the continent, where you live, and which have escaped from captivity. These are more common in some families than others: parrots, wildfowl and finches are especially prevalent to escaping into the wild. 

When you have just started birding, flying birds can post real problems. 

That’s not just because they are flying away from you – though they often are – but because you are used to seeing that species on the ground, in the classic ‘field guide’ pose, so you may be momentarily confused by seeing it airborne. 

So to recap: some species show two or more different plumages, depending on the time of year, or whether you are looking at a male, female or young bird. Some look different depending on the time of year. Others don’t show any variety, but appear confusingly similar to another closely-related species, or even to another, quite different one. 

Some birds don’t show themselves at all, and only sing or call from dense foliage. Others fly high, or against the sun, or rapidly away from you. Some aren’t ‘real’ birds at all, but have just hopped out of a nearby cage or aviary.

For more information, do check out my book How to Birdwatch, still available second-hand via the Abe Books websites.