Taking field notes (1 Viewer)

This is a piggy-back to Tim Allwood's thread on birding competency, and Brian Robson's, response that a forum such as this should be used to promote the hobby of birding and it's related skills. (hope I've paraphrased effectively).

Assuming that someone wishes to take useful field notes, how would they go about it. Clearly it is important to note and/or sketch colours, wing bars, bill shapes, eye rings, supercilliums, behavious, etc., but I was hoping people could share some of their most useful practices for:
a) orgainizing their notes (ex. what medium? cronological or species? how do you find that note on grey-cheeked thrush you made last year?)
b) balancing the observing versus the note taking (drew that bill perfectly, but I wish I had have spent that time watching what the bird was doing)
c) determining the important features to note (ex. if you're only going to get a few glimpses of the species, should I concentrate on bill shape, behaviour, or relative length of the primaries? This becomes easier of course when you know what you have to compare it to, but what of a relatively new bird? What should we look for first?
d) incorporating photos/digiscopes into our tools for bird study.
e) etc.

Obviously you can't describe everything you do in detail in this forum, but a synopsis would be appreciated.

Scott

I am particularly interested in answers to (c) as I usualy manage to miss something important, a check list perhaps?

Mick

cavan wood said:

Assuming that someone wishes to take useful field notes, how would they go about it. Scott

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How do you do it physically? Usually in the field I'm standing, using my hands to operate binoculars. It's jolly difficult to write standing and continue observations. Sometimes I dictate to my PDA, which is easier than writing, but still awkward.

Alan

From (limited) personal experience, I find it's best not to be too quick in doing anything other than looking at/listening to said birdy. They have an awkward habit of flying away, and if you're busy scribbling notes, you wont know where it went. Clearly you need to have a fair idea of what matters for the type of bird right from the beginning. I tend to recite a series of things in my head until either my brain is full or the bird looks like its staying put, then scribble stuff down. Nice drawings dont seem to feature into the reality of the moment, unless the bird is half-dead.

The solution is perhaps to have a side-kick who can watch while you scribble, or vice-versa.

Van Remsen of LSU published a very useful piece on taking field notes for American Birds in 1977.

Here is a link to the .PDF

Brad

cavan wood said:

c) determining the important features to note (ex. if you're only going to get a few glimpses of the species, should I concentrate on bill shape, behaviour, or relative length of the primaries? This becomes easier of course when you know what you have to compare it to, but what of a relatively new bird? What should we look for first?
Scott

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I think one of the important issues to understand here is that various in groups of birds different features are useful. For example in waders & ducks wing pattern is often important, but much less so with, for example, finches & buntings. It just a matter of getting to recognise broad types of birds and organising your brain to cope accordingly. Here's where browsing the field guide, articles etc., before you go out into the field is a big help,
John

I downloaded the PDF, very helpful. The ABA publishes a Birder's Field Notebook Manual which may be helpful.

Stupid question time. How do people with NO(!!!) artistic ability sketch birds. Does one just use a pencil? Do you study the bird and sketch it after it is gone?

I keep a notebook but I just record sightings,behavior and for want of a better phrase "weird stuff". "Weird Stuff" usually means juvenile birds and fall migrants particulary warblers. Fall Warblers are not that bad, but you do need to observe them and think about them. It helps to write what you see, makes you think.

Mike

sclateria said:

Van Remsen of LSU published a very useful piece on taking field notes for American Birds in 1977.

Here is a link to the .PDF

Brad

Click to expand...

Thanks for the pdf. I do recall making notes following Van Remsen's general approach in the past. It does take some time, but it also forces you to re-live the field trip in your head.

Also, thanks for some good suggestions.
Watch first, write later.
Make a mental list as you watch.
Research your bird groups first to know what to look for/record.
Half kill the bird so it holds still and hire a very attractive field assistant so you can spend more time watching...the bird (Do I have that right johnraven? |=)| )
As for drawing, I also have limited skills here, but I think the point is to get the basic shape of a bill, or the relative length of a supercillium or tail feather etc.

Any further comments, suggestions, from those that have been taking notes for years would be appreciated.
Scott

Good thread, Scott. Far more useful than the thread that inspired it.

I'd add a caveat to the whole watch first, make notes later direction this is heading in. The human memory is wonderfully fallible, even in the short-term; far better to watch a bit, write a bit, watch a bit... note down obvious features first, then work your way over the bird's feature stage by stage. Be systematic (head-to-tail works for me). Sketch key features individually; leave the 'whole bird' until the end, when you finally have the luxury of time.

You can't draw? S'easy! Do the kiddy thing of drawing two ellipses, one big, one small, and work off them. And practise practise practise, use the birds you can see from your window. It's like anything, the more you do it, the better you get. It's a good discipline for learning your birds, as it forces you to be analytical in looking at birds, so it helps you retain features in your mind, and speeds up your identification in future.

ce

Following a Thread on here, I've taken to using a pocket 'dictaphone' for recording field notes.
I can record more and quicker, whilst continuing to observe the bird. The writing-up/sketching later can be a bit of a drag though.

I don't write notes and certainly don't sketch details as I'm possibly the world's worst artist.

I do have an extremely good memory however with an ability to recall every scarce bird I've seen and where and when I've seen it. I couple this with mental notes taken on the birds appearance and its comparison with the field guide, which I have studied intensely BEFORE twitching (if that's what I'm doing). I also review the guidebook for species likely to appear at certain times of the year (eg Shearwaters & Petrels in late August, early September) so that I can pre-empt my own discoveries when birding generally.

I make a point of using field skills to see birds that have a call I don't recognise so I can associate the call. This has helped with the likes of Common Redstart, Pied Flycatcher & Bullfinch for example.

This approach has helped me with the following (amongst others):

* Finding my own Med Gull from a large flock of Black-headed Gulls
* Digging out an Iceland Gull amongst an enormous group of other large Gulls.
* Knowing the commoner species when seawatching (Manx, Alcids, seaduck, Gannet etc) in order to notice something unusual.
* Picking out Common Redstart on call in a woodland walk.
* Seperating Garden Warbler from Blackcap on call
* Iding two Common Crane flying over my house a couple of years ago
* Finding Twite amongst a larger flock of Linnets
* Iding a Marsh Tit in my back garden (both on call and appearance)
* Picking Little Stint amongst a flock of winter Dunlin at long distance in poor conditions
* Getting to grips with the feel of Roseate, Common & Arctic Tern at long range.

From the tone of the "other" thread these things are impossible without note taking OR for a twitcher OR somebody who hasn't been birding for a generation or so.

What I am trying to say is that if something works for you it may not necessarily be for everybody else, and somebody having a different approach tdoesn't mean they are doing things wrongly or not learning.

I agree with everything posted above. Watch first and note as much as you can mentally (but not for too long), then write down a systematic description. If I'm being thorough, my usual sequence for a perched bird is as follows (this is an ideal; in practice it's rare to be able to follow this precise order exactly since you may have to wait for certain features to become visible):

1. A sentence or two on the general look and size of the bird to establish the immediate impression it gave.

2. A description of the structure and anything else necessary to establish what the family the bird belonged to (apparently it's not infrequent for descriptions of, say, a rare warbler to go into immense detail without ever establishing that the bird is in fact a warbler!)

Then I go on to a detailed description of the plumage, usually in the following order:

3. Head, working from front to back and downwards (forehead to nape including any crown/lateral crown stripes; supercilia; lores to ear coverts; eye and eye/orbital rings; moustachial/submoustachial stripes; chin and throat. Note the colour of the iris, of course, but don't bother noting that the pupil is black - of course it is: it's just a hole for heaven's sake!)

4. Upperparts: mantle, scapulars, rump

5. Wings: lesser, median and greater coverts; tertials; secondaries; primaries (including things like position of primary tips in relation to tail tip, exposed primary length versus tertial length, etc)

6. Tail and upper and lower tail coverts.

7. Underparts: breast (sometimes divided into upper and lower); belly, vent.

8. Bill (including precise description of shape and length if not already covered)

9. Legs

10. Behaviour (though often it's useful to cover this in the first couple of points rather than leave it to the end)

Of course, the more uniformly coloured a bird is, the more practical it is to roll up several of these points together ("mantle, scapulars and rump ash-grey").

It's important to describe colours as specifically as possible. To call feathers "red" is not very helpful and "brown" is notoriously useless (both European Goldfinch and Dunnock are predominantly brown, but not a bit similar). It's much more useful to use terms such as "rose pink", "scarlet", "burgundy" etc.

It's better still if you can draw. As Cornish Exile says, you can make do with a small oval for the head and a big one for the body. You can then write the notes around the sketch, using pointers as per the Peterson, Mountfort and Hollom field guide.

Having said all that, I think I'd be hard-pushed to find a description where I've followed my own advice to the letter!!

I keep two levels of notes. One rough and in the field, with loads of scribbles and counts (of passage). I add these to my database of 50,000+ records which allows me to study trends etc. I tend not to record in the notes counts of resident species, but I do add these to the database too, via a daylist spreadsheet.

The interesting or unusual or scarce birds I then add to an A4 hardback book and often write a small story around them that 10 years afterwards is fun to read.

Here is a thread I started on the subject a long time ago

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=11943

I'm definitely a "write it down at the time" person. There's much in what Runcorn says with regard to 'doing homework', but I still feel writing notes adds an extra level (with or without sketches) esp. when looking at something that's unexpected or unfamiliar. Whilst it seems to work for Runcorn, for too many people (me included) memory just isn't reliable enough. Indeed I'd go so far to say that being able to memorise complex details like plumage etc with 100% accuracy is a rare gift; I'm envious. Making notes also gives discipline to your observation that memory alone (in my experience) cannot. I'd also add that it's always very useful to paste a copy of drawing of 'bird topography' into the back of your notebook. This is so that a) you can check which bit is which if you don't know and b) it can act as a prompt ("Did I check the lores?"). Cornish Exile's suggestions too are excellent - but I'd add the simple expedient of practising drawing birds at home or even adding (lightly in pencil) a few simple standard 'passerine', 'wader', 'duck' drawings into the back of your notebook. I can draw reasonably well so I always find it easiest to do a few simple sketches & surround them with telegraphic annotations quicker than penning reams of comments. John

Some other essential things to record: weather (wind direction, wind speed, cloud cover and preciptation); time of observation and for how long; distance from bird (e.g. at ranges down to x, but mostly at y); optics used. You might not want to bother with the last for purely personal records, but record committees will appreciate it.

Runcorn Birder said:

I do have an extremely good memory however with an ability to recall every scarce bird I've seen and where and when I've seen it.

From the tone of the "other" thread these things are impossible without note taking OR for a twitcher OR somebody who hasn't been birding for a generation or so.

What I am trying to say is that if something works for you it may not necessarily be for everybody else, and somebody having a different approach tdoesn't mean they are doing things wrongly or not learning.

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Hi there
I wouldn't put the first sentence on anything you send in though Runcorn...


I used to think i could remember stuff until i started sketching in the field what i was actually seeing... vitally important with birds like the SBC or when in a foreign country. People watching the SBC were talking themselves into seeing things that weren't there. I sketched it, and lo and behold it looked just like a Curlew. I saw a few Brits in India last year with a no note taking approach, boy did they make some stringy observations.

notes will show you the exact patter of head streaking, the width of tertial fringes, the location of spotting and flank streaks, the exact primary projection. Imagine trying to 'recall' the prim. proj and scap. fringing on a weird stint next day...

some of the best observers are twitchers - Richard Millington, Mark Golley, Lee Evans, Chris Heard, the end is listless...... ha ha ha. I saw Mark taking notes on the Pratincole recently... and have a look at Twitcher's Diary to see RGM's artwork/notes from 25 years ago!

Tim

In my note book, I shall write in a form of checklist for the anatomical features to study. That will help me notice more and learn some of the body parts. You could say that may make the description too rigid and orderly as opposed to a flowing narrative. This will only be looked at afterwards to see what I have missed in order to try and make my first attempts as natural as possible.

Meanwhile how was my note taking for the Marsh Sand? http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=36879&highlight=Marsh+Sand

Jason,
Just seen your comments on the weather factors. I always get home and realised I got nothing down on that so that's another 'checklist' to use. Thanks.

Tim Allwood said:

have a look at Twitcher's Diary to see RGM's artwork/notes from 25 years ago!

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His descriptions are a bit cursory, though!

(He's well capable of doing proper ones, though!)