Describe the shape of the bird?

The shape of a bird is defined by a number of characteristics. For now we are only going to discuss three namely shape of the bill, length of the tail and length of the legs.

Shape of the bill

The shape of a bird's bill differ from family to family or even species to species. For instance some birds have thin curved bills (sunbirds) and others conical (seedeaters). Flycatchers have thin short bills while shrikes have thicker bills with a definite hook at the end. This characteristic will for instance help you to distinguish between a Fiscal Flycatcher and Common Fiscal. Although there are differences in colour when comparing these two species, this is a very useful feature to look for when trying to distinguish between these two similar looking birds.

The images on the right nicely illustrates some of the different beak forms. When studying these images you will see that the length of the bill is also different from species to species. Always note this feature as in some species (for example sunbirds, especially trying to identify the brown looking females), the length of the bill is an important feature. Use the length of the head of the bird as a guideline.

It is sometimes difficult to judge the length of a birds tail. A useful hint is to compare the length of the tail to the body of the bird. Is the tail shorter, or longer than the length of the body? And if it is longer is it 2x or 3x longer? The answers to these sort of questions will help you greatly when trying to compare your bird with those in your field guide.

Length of the legs

Are the legs short (sparrow) or long (egret)? Although this is obvious in these two examples and you will never confuse these two species with each other it is always important to note the length of a birds legs. If you are at a wetland or dam and a number of waders ( I know you are not going to get them in your garden - just an illustration) are walking near each other, it is very easy to compare the length of the bird's legs (closely related to size of the bird) with each other, and this will greatly assist you in correctly identifying these birds (for instance a Wood Sandpiper versus a Common Greenshank). As in the case of bill length - use the length of the head of the bird as a guideline.