By: Walter Piper

Walter Piper — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 15:59:00 +0000

This is a great site. Thanks so much for putting it together. I hope a few constructive comments are useful. First: no birder that I know uses the terms “upper beak” and “lower beak”. Instead, we say “upper mandible” and “lower mandible”. So I hope you will change these labels, which appear on two figures. Also, the label “head” is trivial and redundant on the top figure, especially when you have other labels for portions of the head. The same can be said of “wing”, which is obvious and too vague to be useful in IDs. (Add “primaries”, “secondaries” and “coverts” here instead. “Nostril”, also, is not useful, as no bird to my knowledge can be ID’d on the basis of its nostril. On the white-throated sparrow figure, “crown stripe” is too vague, since clearly there are several “crown stripes” shown in the figure. What is pointed out in this case is the “median stripe”. (Unlabelled is the “lateral stripe”, which is black on this species.) “Whisker mark” is non-standard and vague; “malar stripe” should be used instead. (I note that you mention this in the text to the left but recommend that you delete “whisker mark” altogether.) I hope these comments are useful. These changes would certainly bring your figures more in line with field guides (like Sibley) that birders use. Thanks for listening! Again, this is a super site! -wp

Comments on: Bird ID Skills: Field Marks

By: Walter Piper