So, I am new to birding and struggling with those brown and white birds that have stripes and spots and things. I have several nice bird field guides but field guides have descriptions of a single bird and nothing like How to tell a song sparrow from a female red-winged blackbird, especially when both are in the area. Or How to tell a pine siskin from a house sparrow. Etc. Is there any book that actually compares birds to help the reader differentiate them? I don’t mind when my female red-winged blackbird is corrected to song sparrow, but then I am looking at the two birds to actually try to learn something from this correction and I still can’t tell them apart. Any tips on how YOU learned to tell them apart?
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My hardcore nature enthusiasm got started by connecting as a child with Audubon, but I have since reverted to herps and am not an expert with birds. That said what helped my ID skills, first with birds then with herps, is just to make yourself familiar with pictures (and for birds calls too) that you know are correctly IDed, like websites and guides. Also use iNat to see how other people ID, and start (or continue) IDing yourself and see what people say when they correct you. To answer your other question, any of the Peterson line of field guides is great. I think Peterson has an Eastern and Western volume on birds.
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Ah, yes, the avian equivalents of the LWCs (little white clams), often called the FLWCs.
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Thanks for your comments but I think perhaps you can understand when I say I am a bit impatient with the “just keep looking at pictures until you know intuitively” approach. That is a long, slow process and creates a lot of self-doubt. As for “see what people say when they correct you” that would be lovely, but I can only remember once or twice over the past four years when identifiers said anything at all other than the identification. I once asked for clarification and was thrilled to get a response from the identifier. (Of course, this is not any judgement against identifiers who are mostly overwhelmed and usually trying to get through a few thousand observations so don’t pause to chat.)
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Yeah it can be slow, that’s exactly what my dad says every time he decides he’s gonna be a birder (I think after about ten years I finally got him to understand the difference between egrets and herons) 
If you have specific questions like how to tell apart sparrows and female blackbirds the Peterson Guides are great, and point out differences between similar species.
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My suggestion would be to go out with a group of birders if you can. See if a local nature or birding group has a guided class or walk. Having a knowledgable person point out and explain the details to you in real time while you’re both looking at the subject is really helpful.
Edited to add: Cornell’s All About Birds has a great compare tool, eg https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Lincolns_Sparrow/id If you scroll down you can compare Lincoln’s Sparrow to, say, Song Sparrow: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Lincolns_Sparrow/species-compare/66116661
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I’m a fan of Cornell’s free website “All about birds”
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/
It not only has lots of photos (including male, female and juvenile) of each species, but also for each species there is a “compare with similar species” feature, with links to those species.
Plus lots of audio recordings.
I see @tiwane was already suggesting this, even as I was typing
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And the plant equivalent DYCs (damn yellow compositae) which I suppose should really be DYA for Asteracae
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Here on the British Isles we call them LBJs (Little brown jobs). :)
As for telling them apart, my method isn’t all that different from others on this thread already. I still get confused by some of the more inconspicuous ones, like the pipits and some finches, especially if the pictures I have of them aren’t great.
The way I go about it is to take photos, bring them home, get out the field guides (preferably Collins), and just flick between the pages with the confusing species constantly, comparing the minute details. If the field guide isn’t working, I go onto Macaulay Library or other online source, and look through the pics of the confusing species, keeping the field guide out, and trying to put the illustrated features onto the irl birds. Preferably the poses should be the same or similar. You can compare between the confirmed pics with your ones, and see if yours has those features. I like to say the features out loud to myself like “OK, now I can see that the streaking on the sides is smudged, rather than defined.” (from a recent session of mine when IDing some atrocious pics of mine of pipits in flight). I find that it solidifies the features better in my mind, making me remember for when I’m in the field.
However, you did state that you are new to birding, so idk how much this would overwhelm you. :P
Of course, like many things in life, you just have to keep doing it to get good, unfortunately. Rome wasn’t built in a day. ;)
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having a photo to compare against references is usually a nice starting point. from there, i think i would normally just search the web for websites that compare similar birds. there are often good specialty sites that show, for example, all the US Swallows and how to compare them; and then there are also good general sites that compare lots of dfiferent birds. for your red-winged blackbird vs song sparrow example, here’s how one of those generalist sites handles that comparison:
recording and learning sounds is also a good way to learn the birds. sometimes the best differentiator of similar birds is sound. you can also use a sound ID application on your mobile device to help you identify birds, or even if you don’t know the specific sounds that you’re hearing, sometimes they are close enough to something you might know that you’ll have an idea that, for example, you’re probably looking at a blackbird or a sparrow or a wren.
also, if you don’t have an expert nearby to ask, you can always try asking some version of an AI chatbot. here’s what Copilot in my browser has to say when i ask:
how do i tell the difference between a red-winged blackbird and a song sparrow?
Copilot:
Spotting the difference between a red-winged blackbird and a song sparrow can be quite fun! Here are some key features to look out for:
Red-Winged Blackbird
- Appearance: Males are striking with their glossy black feathers and bright red and yellow shoulder patches. Females are more subdued, with brown streaks and a hint of red on their wings.
- Size: They are medium-sized birds, about 7-9 inches long.
- Habitat: Often found in wetlands, marshes, and along water bodies.
- Song: Their call is a distinctive, loud, and musical “conk-la-ree!”
Song Sparrow
- Appearance: These birds are smaller, around 5-7 inches long. They have brown streaks on their white or grayish underparts and a distinctive dark spot in the center of their chest.
- Habitat: They are versatile and can be found in a variety of habitats, including gardens, fields, and marshes.
- Song: Their song is a series of clear, sweet whistles and trills, often described as a melodious “maids, maids, maids, put on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle.”
Next time you’re out birdwatching, keep an eye (and ear) out for these differences!
the advice from a chatbot probably isn’t the best quality, but it might provide additional thoughts that any single human might leave out or forget about. in this case, the chatbot pointed out that habitat can also help differentiate birds sometimes (which All About Birds doesn’t usually mention), but it also gives you the song and visual description for an adult male red-winged blackbird, which might not be useful if you’re comparing brown birds.
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It took me quite a few years to get better at telling similarly looking birds apart. Things that helped me.
A) I had a Peterson bird book that was illustrated (not photos). The illustrations had arrows pointing to significant features.
B) as others have noted, I used/use the Cornell site extensively as it has the comparison feature for similarly looking birds.
C) Before fancy apps and stuff, I would sketch out - for example - waterfowl before going out to view spring migration on a lake. There’s a muscle memory to mentally noting, then physically drawing out significant features. I always thought that getting a coloring book for different kinds of birds might be helpful (Dover Publications has them) but I never followed up on it. I also would make notes to take with me in the field. ‘song sparrow = sparrow with dark spot on chest’. The act of writing things down or drawing them helps me remember, even without the actual notes in front of me. It’s just inputting info in multiple ways.
D) I used to watch house sparrows in the back yard. We get lots. It’s kind of boring. Every day, every hour, house sparrows. But then, all of a sudden, one seemed ‘odd’. Maybe it looked a little skinnier. Or maybe it had this blush of yellow on it. Or maybe it hopped about a little different. Then I realized, it wasn’t a house sparrow! I saw my first Pine Siskin in just this way. “What is that?!” The same thing happened with a Harris’ Sparrow. It kind of looked like a male House Sparrow but ‘weird’. Observing over time will build skills. When you’re really familiar with one species, another similarly looking species will stand out as different a little more than it seems like they do now.
All that said, as hard as I was trying, I likely wasn’t doing much in those first few years other than building skills. It seemed like I was ‘failing’ in identifying… but the skills I developed during those years means that now I don’t have to make those kinds of notes. The work of those earlier years paid off. Don’t discount what you’re learning, what you’re building - even when you’re not ‘identifying by sight’.
And, I will say, if I upload an unfamiliar bird to iNat these days, and iNat is ‘pretty sure’ and I go check on the internet and then two people (or maybe a dozen!) agree with me… then I don’t ‘remember’ the key features nearly as well as when I had to work hard for it. Use the AI resources available to you like iNat and Merlin. But over reliance on them will likely delay you in developing your own skills on the reliance of other people’s skills. That said, finding groups to bird with will always be helpful and (hopefully) fun. I learn something new every time I bird with a more experience birder.
I think feeling frustrated is understandable and natural. But hang in there, the best is yet to come. :-)
final note: I mentioned the Peterson bird book. I also have the Sibley guide and my sister gifted me an Audubon book when she thought one just had to have photos not illustrations. I personally found the Audubon book (with photos) not that helpful. I think the Peterson and Sibley guide have their pluses and minuses. I just think those arrows in the Peterson guide were useful for me. Your mileage may vary and you should stick to what you find useful/helpful.
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As others suggest, it comes down mostly to experience. Once you have mastered the characteristics of a few birds, not just their color pattern but behaviors and where you can find them, then you can start to work on the similar-but-not-the-same. It does take time and if you can bird with an experienced person, they can help a lot. That’s how I started.
I still have trouble with brown sparrowy things. But since I started photo’ing them I can always take time to review the pics with a bird guide in hand.
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A lot of good advice here already. I teach a beginner bird ID course and what I always try to emphasize in the beginning is becoming familiar with the shape/structures of the birds rather than just the patterns of stripes/spots/colours etc. Birds like Song Sparrow and female Red-winged Blackbird look superficially similar, but they have very different shapes that reflect their different families: the Song Sparrow is a typical plump sparrow shape with a short triangular bill, and the Red-winged Blackbird is a typical pointy blackbird shape with a more elongated look and pointier-looking bill. It takes a lot of practice to become familiar with and there are no real shortcuts besides spending time looking at the birds in real life and in photos/illustrations. Practicing sketching them is a great way to focus in on the shapes. Spending time with other birders on bird walks etc is a great way to learn. Once you learn the differences in shape between the families to narrow down your IDs, field guides become more useable, since they usually focus on the key differences between closely-related species from the same family. I usually recommend field guides with illustrations over photos because the illustrations often do a better job of capturing the differences between bird shapes by having them in a very standardized pose and usually emphasizing average differences between species (whereas individual variation, lighting, posture, etc can make those differences less obvious in some photos).
I would also encourage you to not worry much about the difficult-to-ID species until you are very familiar with the easier-to-ID species. I remember feeling very overwhelmed the first time I saw an illustration of a female Red-winged Blackbird, wondering how on earth I was supposed to be able to tell it apart from a sparrow, but after seeing thousands of them over the years telling them apart from a sparrow doesn’t feel any harder now than recognizing an individual person in a crowd - it just becomes subconscious once you have the search image ingrained.
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I think merlin bird id, google, and pure experience are the best.
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Many people have taken the time and effort to write well-considered and useful answers to this original question - I believe this represents the Forum at its best!
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Thanks very much for those comments on shape. That’s very helpful.
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Given the choice, I’ll always pick illustrations over photos in a field guide. Unfortunately, I’m rarely given the choice, as photos seem to be all anyone does anymore. They are especially useless in a wildflower guide; those really do need to be line drawings.
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I still get tricked by them…
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It’s not so much that I think Female Red-winged Blackbirds are sparrows. It’s that I see them and somehow think - wow, what is that? That must be a cool new bird! And then I realize my mistake and feel just a teeny bit let down. Both for the miss on a new bird and for falling for that mistake again. :-) This is normally a spring occurrence but it’s happened more than once.
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Shape, time of year, and habitat will eventually help you once you get more experience. As mentioned by other Song Sparrow is shaped differently from Red-winged Blackbird. Same for House Sparrow, and Pine Siskin.
For me I always think of a Pine Siskin as God mashing together a Goldfinch, and a House Finch. Small, narrow shape (like Goldfinch) with narrower pointier bill than both, with the brown streaks of House Finch, and dashes of yellow from the Goldfinch. House Sparrow is going to look like an almost round blob of feathers compared to it.
The weakness of many field guides is the lack of comparison. I’d actually suggest the Sibley Guide app for the phone. You can compare two species together within the app. See example at link. https://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/art_spangenberg2_birds/elementLinks/spangenberg2_fig09.jpg
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