Inside Birding: How-To Videos for Learning Bird Identification

It’s the start of May, perhaps bird watching’s biggest month, when pretty much the entire Northern Hemisphere brims once again with summer’s full array of birds.

It’s a great time to go bird watching, and we’re inviting you to come out with us – in our new, free series of Web videos, Inside Birding. Your hosts are Chris Wood and Jessie Barry, two expert birders who work at the Lab, guide birding tours in their spare time, and compete for the Lab in the World Series of Birding (which, by the way, happens this weekend).

Jessie and Chris are incredibly sharp birders, and in the first four episodes of Inside Birding they share some of their secrets about how they identify birds so confidently and so quickly. Each roughly 10-minute video takes an in-depth look at one of their four basic keys: Size & Shape, Color Pattern, Behavior, and Habitat. (Visit the Building Skills section of All About Birds for more practice at using these four keys.)

Bird ID is just the beginning for Inside Birding. Future episodes will cover everything from practical details for beginners to where and when to take a great birding expedition. Jessie and Chris are fun, knowledgeable, and they’re able to explain complex skills in clear language that’s easy to grasp. Combined with breathtaking cinematography and gorgeous clips from our Macaulay Library archives, you’ll soon find Chris and Jessie’s advice is easy to adopt – and fun to put into practice.