This is Bird Note.

How do you get started learning to identify birds?

There are so many, and they hardly sit still long enough for you to have a good look.

Well, David Sibley, who literally wrote the book on identifying birds, has some advice.

Spend time at home, paging through the field guide.

And at first, names like Scoder and Vireo and Eagrit are going to seem strange and foreign.

But by flipping through the pages of the book and looking at the pictures

and reading the names, you'll start to get a sense of what those birds are, what makes

Averio Averio.

From someone who's observed birds with great interest for years, here's a welcome note.

It doesn't have to be about seeing a lot of different species,

but more about getting to know the birds that are common in your neighborhood or in your yard.

It can be really rewarding at that level. Another thing that I think is incredibly useful for a

beginning birder is to get in touch with a local nature center

or Audubon chapter. Someone can take away all the uncertainty and say, yes, that's a song sparrow.

Your first 25 or 50 species are the hardest ones to learn. So if you can find somebody who can

help you with those, you'll have a really

good solid start. We're ready to help too at birdnote.org. I'm Mary McCann.