Many are the times when someone will call out a bird and you will have to find it. Each of these situations is different—some involve scanning with bins or even a scope, some mean needing to move closer, or left, or right. Sometimes the bird will be easy— “teed up” at the top of a bush like a golf ball on a tee, or silhouetted against the skyline, or next to some really obvious locator. But sometimes you won’t find the bird except with some effort, and even then a few birds might “escape” before you do.
Photo by Laura Guerard.
Here’s an example of one such case. We were at Higbee Beach tracking down a skulking Swamp Sparrow. I gave directions as best I could—about a foot off the ground, about a foot into the multiflora rose hedge, over in the pale-ish grass clump. Typical Swamp Sparrow location - mostly invisible.
A little while passed as we stood in the same spot, and a few other birds were called out, too, and then someone asked if the Swamp Sparrow was still around (which meant, unfortunately, they hadn’t seen it yet).
I could tell this person was inexperienced, and spotting that bird was going to be a real challenge for them. Here are the steps I took them through:
1) Make sure you understand exactly where the bird is. Listen carefully to the directions given to the bird, and then repeat them back to double check. Make sure you can see the spot from where you are standing (a good leader will suggest how participants should move to gain a clearer view if needed).
2) Pre-focus on the right spot. Often, you have a sense of how far away the next binocular target will be. Prepare for it by pre-focusing at that distance—point blank for butterflying, out at the limits for raptors, or in this case, on the very bush the sparrow is in.
3) Set your eyes to “soft focus”. Seeing something – be it bird, bug, wild mammal, or a human prowler at night, becomes much easier if that something moves. To see motion, it is best not to scrutinize the landscape, but rather to scan it, keeping the eyes at what I call a soft focus. Rather than zero in on this particular limb, and that particular leaf, try to see it all at once. Call your peripheral vision into play. The best field observers seem uncanny at spotting birds; the uncanniness is their ability to pick up motion to the sides or overhead, and to pick up the smallest motion. Think “bird blinking its eye” as you scan. In this case, with the rough location of the bird already known, any movement at all should be picked up instantly, leading then to….
4) Eyes, then binoculars. You will want to quickly and fluidly go from naked eye to a magnified view. The best way to do this is keep your eyes on the bird, or the movement in the bushes. Then raise your bins to your eyes, and voila, the bird is there.
5) If all the above fails, make sure the bird still being seen, recheck the directions to the bird with somebody, and scan the spot with your bins.