I recently heard a podcast that featured Kevin Karlson speaking about his upcoming book – Birding by Impression. The concept is to use general impression upon viewing bird to narrow the identification choices or positively identify a species. Most of us are familiar with of “giss” – using our general impressions and experience to guide us towards an ID. I tend to think of impression birding as Giss 2.0.
Many of us have been unconsciously utilizing this right brain process only to switch to a totally left-brained analytical ID process. We wade into the minutia of feather anatomies and other details. Impression birding has us sticking with that creative thought process. In time, we train ourselves to recognize birds like we recognize friends and relatives. We know our friends without having to think about it, and with use and practice we can know our birds without thinking about it.
The basic key to impression birding are the following;
- Size: What relative size is the bird?
- Shape: What is the overall shape of the bird?
- Structure: What are the prominent or unique features of the bird?
- Behavior: Is the bird engaging in some differentiating behavior?
- Habitat: Where am I seeing this bird? (I love this one!)
- Coloration: What is the color of the bird? (I hate this one…colorblind)
- Vocalization: Is the bird calling/singing?
- Comparison: Who are the bird’s neighbors?
I am only paraphrasing Kevin’s methodology and he has a wealth of articles, written by him, on his site that discuss this topic. I encourage everyone to give it a gander or two.
Now, I feel that impression birding is a great weapon to add to our arsenals, but it is just another tool. I do not believe that it is a replacement for knowledge, experience or analysis; it is one more skill that we can employ to help us bird better.
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