Help identifying a bird

Need help identifying a bird? Do you want to sharpen your birding skills? Explore the links below.

If you are still stumped after consulting these resources, contact us and we will try to reply as soon as possible.

Online ID Tools

• All About Birds - The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s online bird guide
• Baby Bird ID - Wildlife Hotline Online offers help identifying baby birds
• BWD Bird Identification Guide - Bird Watcher's Digest.com
• WhatBird Wizard - Let the Bird Expert ask questions to help you identify your bird

Develop your Skills

• Dendroica - An aid to identifying North American birds
• Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter - Photographs, songs, videos, identification tips, maps, and life history information for North American birds, from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
• Patuxent Bird Quiz - Test your knowledge of North American bird identification, distribution in winter (from the Audubon Christmas Bird Count) and summer (from the North American Breeding Bird Survey), and song
• WhatBird - A search engine that helps birders identify birds through a downloadable toolbar, a visual characteristic search, songs and more

Practical Tips

• Bird Identification - About.com provides information about physical characteristics that can help you make a positive identification, what resources can help you identify different birds, and how to identify even the trickiest and most confusing birds
• Bird Identification Clues - Canadian Museum of Nature's tips for improving your bird identification skills
• Bird Identification: The Six ‘S’ Rule - Practical advice from the Birds Calgary blog
• Birding.com - Identification of the parts of a bird body and tips to make identifying birds easier
• Birding for Beginners - Ten Tips for New Birders, by Pete Thayer
• Difficult Bird Identifications - About.com’s tips for telling certain similar bird species apart
• A Guide to Not Mis-Identifying Birds - Jim Frazier’s Gadwall Birding Page offers practical recommendations
• Identify Types of Birds - About.com’s tips for bird identification within certain bird families
• Identifying Wild Birds - Links to information for new birders, including bird identification, feeders, binoculars, taxonomy and more