Tricky Pairs
Know your caws and croaks, big tails and small
The first
step in learning to identify backyard birds is to learn to tell the major
groups apart. Woodpeckers from chickadees from sparrows from hawks from
jays.
Then within
these groups, there are often many distinctive types that just take time
and experience to get to know.
But after the
first flush of identification success, there remain some tricky problems
that defy resolution. Here you will find three pairs of species that
require a little extra attention to identify.
Sharp-shinned
vs. Cooper's Hawk
Surprisingly, it is
much easier to tell if you are looking at a first-year bird or an adult
than to know whether you have a Sharpie or a Coop.
Immatures of
both species have brown heads, backs and vertical breast streaks. Adults
have gray heads and backs and pink or salmon-colored horizontal breast
streaks.
Size is an
important difference between the two species, although it can be hard to
tell if there are no other birds nearby. Sharp-shinned hawks are about the
size of a Blue Jay, Mourning Dove or flicker. Cooper's Hawks are larger
than those birds, females (larger than males in both species) almost the
size of a crow.
Sharpies look
small for a hawk in other ways as well: very thin legs, a small rounded
head and a small beak. If the bird shows a square head, or signs of a
crest or peak near the back of the head, then you have a Coop.
A classic
distinction between Sharpies and Coops is that Sharpies have square tails
and Coops have round tails.
Also, Coops
have more white at the tip of the tail. An immature Coop has a whiter
belly. In immature Sharpies, the streaks cover both the breast and the
belly.
An adult Coop
has a pale nape or hindneck. In a Sharpie, the nape is the same color as
the top of the head and back.
Downy Vs.
Hairy WoodPeckers
Almost everyone who feeds birds in the United States and Canada can
attract Downy Woodpeckers, except for most of Nevada and Arizona. And
almost everyone who lives in or near woodlands can attract Hairies as
well.
The trick can
be figuring out which is which. Both woodpeckers are mottled black and
white birds. In both species, only adult males have a red patch at the
back of the head.
It seems like
identification should be pretty straightforward: Hairies are quite a bit
bigger than Downies. The bill on a Hairy is as long as its head is wide,
while a Downy's bill is less than half as long as its head is wide.
Nonetheless,
I often find myself questioning the identification unless I get a close
and leisurely look.
There are
other clues that help clinch an identification of Downy or Hairy.
The best clue
is foraging substrate: Downies like to feed on small branches, twigs and
even weeds. Hairies prefer tree trunks and large branches. In most of its
range, Downy is the only one of the two that has small black bars on its
white outer tailfeathers. Also the small size of the Downy's bill is
often emphasized by the large tuft of nasal bristles at the base of the
bill that may partially cover the bill.
Crows
vs. Ravens
There are four species of crows in the United States and two species
of Ravens. The two ravens are very difficult to separate from each other,
and the crows are best distinguished by voice.
It used to be
that crows were most likely to be found near civilization and ravens in
wild areas. But ravens are getting much more civilized recently are
appearing along roadsides, in cities and in backyards.
Learn to
separate crows and ravens so you can tell if ravens are starting to
invade your neighborhood.
Most people
have a good start in identifying crows: They are very common and very
noisy. Pay a little attention to the caw of the crow and its broad
wings, rounded tail and jagger-like beak.
If you har
the croak of a raven, then you will almost always be alert that
this is not a crow. If sitting nearby, you will then notice that the
raven is larger and has a heavier bill and a shaggy throat.
Ravens and
crows are often seen in flight, and you can learn to separate then as
well. Ravens have longer, thinner wings than crows and a wedge-shaped
tail. The central tail feathers are longer than the outer tail feathers
in ravens; all tail feathers are about the same length in crows. Another
clue is that ravens love to soar - flying high without flapping their
wings - but crows do not.
Remember that
ravens and crows are among the most intelligent of all birds and are
great flyers. They are really fun to watch. So look for a raven invasion
near you.
Greg Butcher
(gbutcher@audubon.org) is
director of bird conservation for national Audubon Society.
