Twelve grams of cuteness: A ruby-spotted warbler is ringed in Canada.
Image: Picture Alliance
Please also pay attention to the pecking rate: Anyone who observes birds should carry a good identification book with them. Not only does it help identify species, but it sharpens perception.
EA question for readers interested in ornithology: How can marsh tits and willow tits be distinguished from each other? Both birds look almost the same, gray-brown plumage, white cheeks, black crown. Only singing allows an absolutely certain determination. If the animals are quiet, things get complicated because then you have to look closely, whereby the light, the position of the tit and its distance from the observer sometimes make it easier and sometimes make it more difficult. This also applies to other species where there is a risk of confusion. Chiffchaff and Fitis. Marsh and reed warblers. Forest and garden treecreeper.
More than three hundred breeding bird species have been recorded in Germany, and around eleven thousand species exist worldwide. Keeping track of this is not easy, although the varied plumage patterns of many birds – juvenile plumage in juvenile specimens, plain plumage outside of the breeding season, magnificent plumage during the breeding season – represent an additional challenge. Great gulls, for example, which only become adults when they are more than three years old, are often difficult to identify precisely. A one-year-old herring gull with advanced plumage will hardly differ from a slowly moulting two-year-old conspecific. From July to August you can encounter the animal in five possible appearances: just fledged, previous year, two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old or older.
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