- a pair of binoculars
- a field guide (to help you identify the species you come across)
- a field notebook (to write down your observations)
Make yourself familiar with the organization of
field guides and with some of the different families of birds. Now you have binoculars and can spot an object with your naked
eye and then look at it through the binoculars without having to search for ten minutes. Most importantly, you've avoided
the frustration - so far - of trying to associate a particular name with a particular bird. Now, to accomplish this feat,
here are some helpful techniques for learning to identify families and species of birds.
The first thing to remember is: don't make bird identification hard
on yourself. There are two general rules to keep in mind during your first few months of Birdwatching: 1) eliminate as many
species as possible from consideration before you ever attempt to identify anything, and 2) the bird is most likely a species
that commonly occurs in your area, not some strange exotic that blew in from a thousand miles away.
These rules are closely tied to one another, and they focus on making
birding easier by reducing the number of choices you have to consider. For example, in Florida there is only one type of hummingbird
that occurs regularly, the ruby-throated hummingbird (verify this from your field guide, if you like). Several other hummingbirds
have been seen in Florida on occasion, but why worry about trying to identify these uncommon vagrants until you have more
experience with our most common species?
One of the easiest ways to exclude birds is to go through your field
guide and put an "X" next to those that do not typically occur in your geographic area. Put these aside for the time being.
By doing this, you drastically reduce the number of birds you have to worry about identifying from the 900 birds in your guide
to the 300 or so birds that are regularly seen in Costa Rica! By the way, don't worry about marking up your field guide. A
field guide personally adjusted to meet your needs is the best friend you can have when alone in the field. Just make
sure to use a pencil or permanent ink so that the words won't smear if you leave the book in the rain or drop it in the mud
occasionally.
Another way to eliminate choices is to consider the time of year the
bird might occur in your area. The range maps included with field guides display this type of information. Some beginners
might even find it beneficial to place colored dots next to birds in their field guides. For example, put a red dot next to
birds that are year-round residents, put a blue dot next to birds that are only winter visitors, put a green dot next to birds
that are summer visitors, and put a black dot next to birds that only pass through Costa Rica during migration.
These procedures will quickly eliminate a lot of confusing birds from
consideration.
There are five basic clues you can look
and listen for that will allow you to solve the bird identification puzzle: 1) the bird's silhouette, 2) its plumage and coloration,
3) its behavior, 4) its habitat preferences, and 5) its voice. This may seem like a formidable amount of information to gather,
but in truth you often need only one or two of these clues to identify a bird. Sometimes, the key to identification is simply
knowing which clue to look for first when you see an unusual bird. As your birding abilities increase, you will be able to
pinpoint the important clues with greater ease and certainty.
Information courtesy Great Florida Birding Trail
Other web sites of interest to Costa Rica birders:
American Birding Association
BBC Birds page Costa Rica Birds | 
