Memorizing tips (1 Viewer)

[lostintwilight]

This may sound silly but how do you memorize species? Especially when you have similar ones like gulls and sparrows

 

[delia todd]

No, there's no silly questions here. For me it's one thing to know what the difference is between two species, but it's then remembering which is which LOL.

I'm sure there'll be a few coming along with some helpful hints.

 

[Stonefaction]

This may sound silly but how do you memorize species? Especially when you have similar ones like gulls and sparrows

How do you personally best remember the differences between any set of broadly similar things (colleagues/friends etc, different neighbourhood dogs/cats, different musicians etc). Whatever method works best for you can be adapted to work for birds. It took me ages to get my head around how to tell pipits apart, or the differences between Bar Tailed and Black Tailed Godwits, and which was which, and I'm still trying to get to grips with some of the larger gulls.

Practice works quite well, regardless - the more you see/hear the birds you're trying to memorise, the better. One day it all just falls into place - or you find a way that helps you make the mental connections you need. Watch videos on YouTube - they can add to your mental image of the bird in question (though not all of them are 100% accurate - possibly a good idea to check comments for mention of accuracy). Flick through a bird book and try to name the bird without looking at the caption first - the more times you see the picture, the more it sticks.

 

[delia todd]

How do you personally best remember the differences between any set of broadly similar things (colleagues/friends etc, different neighbourhood dogs/cats, different musicians etc). Whatever method works best for you can be adapted to work for birds. It took me ages to get my head around how to tell pipits apart, or the differences between Bar Tailed and Black Tailed Godwits, and which was which, and I'm still trying to get to grips with some of the larger gulls.

Practice works quite well, regardless - the more you see/hear the birds you're trying to memorise, the better. One day it all just falls into place - or you find a way that helps you make the mental connections you need. Watch videos on YouTube - they can add to your mental image of the bird in question (though not all of them are 100% accurate - possibly a good idea to check comments for mention of accuracy). Flick through a bird book and try to name the bird without looking at the caption first - the more times you see the picture, the more it sticks.

Yes, I used to look in the Gallery and try to name birds without looking at the titles. Also I'd read the ID thread and see if I could put a name to it before reading the comments.

One thing we have in the Gallery now (which wasn't available when I first joined - 20 years ago in December!) are a number of videos, these are all linked to the relevant Opus article. If there's a blue search bar there's at least one video to watch. The yellow bar is for the still images.

 

[Georgebirds]

As a fellow new and rather forgetful birder who struggles to memorise all the ones which look quite alike, I found this site a great help :

Nord University - Birdid - Quiz

quiz.natureid.no

Set it to UK and the largest number of photos to ID, then click my way through. Guess some, get told I'm wrong. Repeatedly, on the tricky/similar species. Laugh at myself every time I get the same wrong answers on the same few photographs. EVENTUALLY learn to recognise the photo it's telling me off about, my score goes up, and I find I've taught myself the exact things to look for to get it right. It's a fun time-waster game which isn't entirely a waste of time

 

[Gottzi]

Anyone else find that the bird names are not the UK names, Like Lapland Longspur and Parasitic Jaeger on Nord University?

 

[Andy Adcock]

Nothing beats experience and continuous use and practice, learn the birds you see most often, locally and then if you do field trips, broaden you knowledge base, based on where you're going. Small incremental additions to your knowledge base, will work best IMO.

I personally, wouldn't muddy the water as a beginer, by comparing your common species, with similar ones that you have little chance of seeing until, you have chance of seeing the two, together somewhere.

Also, if you're one of the lucky ones with 'the gift', learn the calls.

 

[01101001]

Just looking at the field guide illustrations or headline photos in Merlin helps you remember what the adult male of the species looks like (sometimes both sexes of adults when there's no dimorphism). You can learn the females and young later, prioritising those that are common in your area (the ones you'll get to have the most experience with). I'd also recommend learning songs and calls on a case-by-case basis: you hear a new sound that's close enough to get a good recording of (one-by-one, not all new sounds at once), record it and, with the use of Merlin Sound ID or BirdNET (the app or the website), try to see what it was, check (using several different field recordings of yours) whether the answer was 100% confident or if the app vacillated due to a number of similar sounds given by different species, listen to examples in Merlin or online; if it's a song, try to look up a description of how to identify it in the internet for tips about phrasing, pitch and distinctive motifs, adjust as you go -- there might be things you'll mistake for others at first or those you misidentify in spite of the research you've conducted due to unawareness of mimicry or similar songs/calls, so you'll have to revisit some of your past records (it can happen with visual ID's as well).

EDIT:
BirdID's Bird Guide - Nord University - Birdid (comparison option)
https://www.acopiancenter.am/plate30.asp (clickable pictures)

Web-books - The Sound Approach

(some useful links in different places)

 

[jurek]

Before trips, I often look at Ebird collection of photos from a given country, and try to guess birds without looking at names.

 

[YuShan]

I always do a bit of homework before a trip. It helps a lot to familiarise yourself with the species you are likely to see. I may not remember all the exact names at that point, but I do know what bird it is. If a number of species are very similar, rather than trying to memorize all the exact details I try to remember what features I should focus on specifically to separate these confusion species (e.g. head pattern, undertail, bill shape etc). Often you see a bird well for only a second, so I want to make sure that I use that time effectively by knowing beforehand what feature I should focus on, so I have a clear picture in my mind when I check my field guide after the sighting. I don't want find out afterwards that I should have checked for example the fringes of the tail feathers while I was focused on something else.

 

[YuShan]

Also, my experience is that when you have similar species but one is common and one is rare, when you know the common one well, the rare one often stands out much more than you would have expected, even in very similar looking species. I have experienced quite a few times when I was looking for something rare that I was really worried I wouldn't even recognise it if I were to come across it. But then when found, it was really obvious.

 

[jurek]

By the way, remember that similar birds usually have different breeding habitat and abundance. Often only 1 or few of many similar species are likely at a given place and time. It helps to narrow your confusion. This is true especially in the breeding season. Non-breeding gulls are something of an extreme because really many species can be seen in one flock.

 

[Andy Lakin]

I would definitely recommend a good bird id app i.e Collin's for Europe as the illustrations are top quality and it has a compare similar species option
Also a lot of beginners (understandably) opt for a bird book with just a few species in but often they are next to useless with very poor illustrations and often neglect immature plumage.