Identification

The fundamentals of identifying an unfamiliar bird are based on comparison with what you already know.  There are three types of comparative features in this process;

• Environmental based information such as location or habitat,
• Appearance-based information such as shape and size and
• Behavioural or functional based information such as call or flight.

The Australian continent offers birds a wide range of environments such as rainforests, forests, woodlands, scrublands, and grasslands resulted in rich diversity of bird life. The geographical location and the living habitat a bird is seen is often important to confirm identification of a bird. If you live in Victoria and saw a colourful parrot at a nearby forest, according to your field guide, distributed only in Western Australia, your identification may be incorrect. It is very rare to see a forest bird out in the sea or a sea bird in a forest. As you become familiar with your field guide and various species of birds, grouping species by habitat will become much easier and accurate.

Map (1): Extent of all forms of vegetation across Australia

Map Source: Metcalfe D, Bui E (2016). Land: Vegetation. In: Australia state of the environment 2016, Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy, Canberra, https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/land/topic/2016/vegetation-0, DOI 10.4226/94/58b6585f94911

Map (2): Numbers of bird species and critically endangered bird species listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in each Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia region

Map Source: Cresswell ID, Murphy H (2016). Biodiversity: Terrestrial plant and animal species: Birds. In: Australia state of the environment 2016, Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy, Canberra, https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/biodiversity/topic/2016/terrestrial-plant-and-animal-species-birds, DOI 10.4226/94/58b65ac828812

• The appearance of the bird often uses as the primary method of identifying a bird. The appearance can be one or combination of features like overall size and shape of the body, beak, legs, tail, and wings. It is always best to find a known bird you can compare to for an accurate size and shape. 

Although the most striking feature of a bird is its colour and plumage patterns but is the most misleading when it comes to identification of birds. The colours can change depending on the light, time of the day, the direction one look at the bird against the sun and also the age of the bird. 

Then it comes to the distribution of colours of the body and special structural characteristics known as field features. Finally, it is helpful to narrow down the choices based on the profile (which family the bird belongs to) of the bird.

When birds performing their day-to-day activities, such as flying, feeding, call (making a sound or song) and even defending themselves often can provide a definitive clue to identify the bird. 

Some of these behavioural indicators are unique to a given group of species or even to a bird. All birds make some kind of noise that is known as a call or song. Since these sounds are unique to a given bird, it is an important way to identify the bird even if the bird is not in visible. There are some exceptions where some birds are known to mimic other’s songs. The Superb Lyrebird’s remarkable mimicking ability is well known in birding world.

The flight is another important feature in bird identification process specially grouping them into a certain bird species. There are many styles in which a bird can fly and knowing these can be very helpful in trying to identify a bird in flight.  These flight styles include direct (herons, doves), undulating (finches, sparrows), flap and glide (shearwaters, swallows), moth-like (owls) and static soaring (eagles).