How to Teach Bird Identification

If you love birding, it’s only natural to want to share your enthusiasm. Learning how to teach bird identification is fairly easy if you simply remember the steps you take each time you try to identify a new bird. Patience and repetition on your part will help others gain an appreciation for the beauties of birds.

Birding is an entertaining and educational hobby. Teaching others can be just as fascinating. Although a good birding book is essential, knowing how to teach basic bird identification can make quick work of narrowing down a possible identification.

• Teach students how to compare the sizes of birds. At a glance it should be easy to determine if a bird is as small like a sparrow, mid-size like a crow or large like a hawk or eagle.


• Consider the shape of a bird. Birds with long legs are often waders found near the water’s edge. Those with large wings compared to their bodies may travel long distances.  The silhouettes of some birds are quite distinctive.


• Color and field marks are some of the first things novice birders will notice. Make your students aware that some colors are dependent on season. The male goldfinch is bright yellow during the spring and summer but reverts to a drab olive during the winter. Still, color and field marks are very useful for bird identification.


• Examine the wings. Wings can tell quite a bit about birds. Help your students notice wing shape. Raptors and swallows often have wings that curve sharply and are set near to the head. This gives them speed and maneuverability. However, the wings of geese and ducks are set farther back to give their large bodies more lift.


• Beaks and bills are distinctive identification tools. Long thin bills, like a hummingbird’s, can be used to sip nectar. A raptor’s bill is curved and hooked, while a shorebird often has a spoon bill for sifting small crustaceans.


• Listen for bird calls. Each bird species has a unique call. Even if you cannot see a bird, you can often identify it if you know what it sounds like. Help your students identify some of the most common calls.


• Narrow down bird species by where they live. Two birds may be very similar but if one is commonly found in the area where your student is looking and another is not, it is likely that the first bird is the correct one. Look at habitat and season when identifying birds.