Hi Everyone,
I've recently moved to Dodworth in Barnsley, and have a beautiful little garden that seems to attract a lot of bird life, which has now got me interested in watching them and finding out more about the visitors I get each day.
90% of what I seem to get in the garden is sparrows and dunnocks, but I also get pigeons, blackbirds, goldfinch's, blue tits and Jays. However, about a week ago I spotted this little fella...
Which looks to my (very) inexperienced eye to be a Savi's Warbler, but I wanted to get the take of the experts on here. Have I got that right, or am I off the mark?
Richard B
If you are not planning on birding in Europe I'd strongly recommend Britain's Birds. It's a photographic guide but very comprehensive and shows birds in a variety of plumages and gender variation. Great value for money too. If you do buy it make sure you get the second edition which is just out.
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Tony
My Flickr Photostream
For advice about Birding, Identification,field guides, binoculars, scopes, tripods, etc - put 'Birding Tips' into the search box
I think a lot of it is down to experience and getting to know the general shape, size and behaviour of birds as well as location. You get a sense of the type of bird you are looking at even if you can't immediately identify it.
In my edition of the book there's a set of thumbnails at the front which should enable you to home in fairly quickly to the group of species that you have seen. You wouldn't need to flip though pages of ducks, waders, sea birds etc if you are looking at a small perching bird.
Glad you like the book although it's not the sort of thing you would take into the field, it's more of a reference book if , for example, you've taken a photo of an unknown bird. For instance, if you'd looked up Savi's Warbler you would have rapidly realised there's no way a bird like that would have come to a garden feeder.
If you use a smartphone there's a free app that you might like to try called Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab. This is available for both Android and Apple phones. Although it was originally developed for the American market you can download separately a database of bird species for Britain and Europe. One of its features is that there's an interactive Bird ID which takes you through various questions and comes up with one or more suggestions. None of these apps are foolproof but worth giving it a go. Good photos of birds and you can play songs and calls as well.