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You learn birds like you learn anything - starting small, learning obvious/common birds and what makes them what they are, and working your way up. My mom was super into birds when I was a child, so I had a solid knowledge base as an adult. Today, I rehab birds and I work in education with glove-trained raptors, and I’ve picked up a LOT of advanced knowledge through that.

For the average person who wants to know more, bird ID websites and subs (like this one!) are a good way to get in a little bit of bird ID every day to remind you of common birds. Visit this sub and try to ID a couple of posts every day, and then look at the comments to see if you’re right. I also highly recommend a good bird guidebook for your region. I’m a Stokes person myself, but the most popular guides are Audubon, Sibley, and Peterson. These are all good choices, and they have helpful guides on how to ID birds and what the key words are. And since you’ll always have your phone on you, a bird ID app is essential. I prefer Audubon’s app, but Merlin is also popular. They are both free. Both also have VERY helpful guides that will narrow down your choices based on your location, time of year, bird shape, bird color, etc. This is helpful for novices because it narrows the overwhelming amount of choices for an ID down to a few.

I recommend learning the types of birds first. When you look at a bird, you can eliminate about 90% of your species choices by knowing what TYPE of bird you’re looking at. Learn what a perching bird, tree-clinging bird, upland ground bird, waterbird, hummingbird, gull, dove, hawk, owl, swallow, etc are. This sounds like a lot but these body types are all so different that you’ll figure it out almost immediately. Then once you can look at something and say “that’s a gull” or “that’s a perching bird”, you’ll have a way easier time determining species. Learning species in your area is just a matter of time. Make an effort to learn the super common birds in your area. For the eastern US - Mockingbirds, robins, red-tailed hawks, hummingbirds, Great Blue Herons, etc. You can also use these easy birds to learn common identifying field marks - “eye stripe”, “wing bar”, “plumage”, etc. You can use your book and app, and post here or on bird ID Facebook groups. Birders love telling other people how to ID birds. Once you learn the common birds in your area, you can start figuring out the hard stuff. Non-breeding plumage, females of different species that look the same, gulls and sandpipers, Cooper’s vs Sharp-Shinned. We are here to help you with that. Post as much as you want!

I hope that this helps. Please reply or DM me if you have questions!

Edit: i forgot to answer your group question. Going out with “bird nerd” groups is SUPER helpful because they’re led by a very knowledgeable person who you can learn from, and everyone there is super into this hobby, and they love to talk about it. Your local Audubon chapter should have free or very cheap bird outings around your city. I always recommend these groups, as the one in our area is very active and informative.

Edit 2: also, if you’re going to be really into this, invest in a decent pair of binoculars. My partner is also a birder and they bought me these. They’re expensive, but a good pair of binoculars will REALLY help, as you can obviously see things a lot better. I wouldn’t recommend dropping that much on this if you’re not going to use them, but if you get into birding enough and you think you’ll use them, they’re worth the price. Until then, maybe buy a cheaper pair or see if you can borrow a pair.

They're extremely different! For starters, a Red-tailed Hawk is a buteo. Big rounded head, broad shoulders, medium-length tail, thick legs and big feet. Merlins are falcons so they're long and slender with long tails, and thin but very long toes.

Additionally, the coloration on these two birds is totally different. Red-tailed Hawks are super variable, admittedly, but they never have this gray tone to the back - rather, various shades of brown and sometimes slightly gold, with white-mottled scapulars. Most Redtails will also have an apparent belly band pattern - clear whitish breast, dark feathers across the lower belly, and then whitish or very slightly streaked leg feathers.

I'd recommend familiarizing yourself first with the general shape differences between buteos, accipiters, and falcons, as well as a handful of oddities like harriers, kites, and osprey. Eagles are kind of their own set of weird things but if you can figure out the first three on sight then you can look closer when something doesn't fit one of those. And when it does, you can then narrow down into which buteo, accipiter, or falcon you have based on finer plumage and habitat details.

A really good book to check out, if you're interested in raptor ID, is Hawks in Flight. It's a perfect primer to figuring these guys out.

well those two things are pretty much what I used 😅

I busted out this 750 page monstrosity, found a decent match, and then compared it to sightings on eBird for Pichincha Province, where Mindo is. Luckily Mindo (and Ecuador in general) is pretty well covered by eBird, and Buff-tailed Coronet is pretty common in the area.

If both you and your girlfriend like watching birds in your area, i suggest buying a bird book to encourage your interests. It's a lifelong hobby that only gets more interesting as time passes. I'm sure others will have their own favorite, but my suggestion is:

National Geographic Birds of North America

Good luck!

I don't think cowbirds typically parasiitize birds that nest in cavities, so no worries there. It's not something I would worry about. I have both species show up to my feeders - more of the cowbirds though. My grandparents feed house sparrows by the dozens. House sparrows are part of North America now - some of us just don't appreciate them (or other invasives like starlings). Though I respect the hell out of their ability to take advantage of people.

The last picture there is a red-bellied woodpecker. A very cool species that creates tree cavities that other species will take over. If you put out a suet feeder they really like it and will show up regularly. Starlings (another invasive in the US) will also eat suet, so a upside down one like this will help just the nuthatches and woodpeckers use it.

Hmm. If you're looking to get into birds there are loads of good websites, but personally I'd recommend picking up the Collins guide (the standard and best) and a pair of reasonable 8 32 or 8 40 bins over any websites. There's no substitute for experience either, so get outside and find some birds. If you don't know what they are, then ask questions. There are no stupid questions. When trying to make an ID, assume everything you've seen is common and check what time of year it's found in the UK - loads of people forget to do that when starting out. And so long as you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it right.

That said, www.birdforum.net/forum.php is useful, if a bit irritating. There are subforums for almost everything and everywhere, and while it's global it's pretty UK-centric. Xeno-Canto has an enormous archive of calls/vocalisations, as does youtube. Twitter has a boat-load of helpful and skilled people on it. Rare Bird Alert (and similar companies) for if you get interested in chasing the rarities. There are loads of local groups/forums/yahoo or google email groups/etc for the UK too - here are two such pages for Manchester, for example. And then there are countless hundreds of blogs and personal sites for specific locations, reserves, people, etc. The RSPB's site isn't hugely useful, imo. It'll show their reserves and so on (as will the sites for the various Wildlife Trusts) but they do have a basic bird guide and an ID tool. It's not nearly as good as a book on the subject but isn't a bad thing to play with and will give you (mostly) realistic and likely suggestions.

I own and use the guide by Garrigues and Dean. I didn't look at any other books when I bought it, because I was a 7th grader and foolishly forgot to buy a field guide before I went on the trip. It was the only quality, english guide I could find at the time. The book is lightweight and very traveler-friendly, and although the pictures tend to be somewhat dim, they generally provide enough accuracy to make good comparisons. The range maps are also very useful and appear to be quality, and very rare birds are for the most part still included. Based on the Amazon reviews, I think most other people agree that this is the best traveler's field guide for Costa Rica available at the time.

Amazon has a great feeder that I've used. Easy to clean and maintain.

http://www.amazon.com/Aspects-361-Oriole-Feeder-16-Ounce/dp/B000NVDGKM

General field guides like Sibleys and Petersons probably are going to have to generalize a bit on shorebirds which can be pretty complex. I've been using this book which has been super informative!

The Genius of Birds, though sometimes borders on being slightly dry, is pretty interesting. Some birds are really smart!

This one is regarded as the best book for general bird identification in europe http://www.amazon.com/Birds-Europe-Second-Edition-Princeton/dp/0691143927

and this one is more specific and takes on the Sylvia-warbler familiy like Subalpine Warbler, Sardinian Warbler Ruepells Warbler and such http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sylvia-Warblers-Identification-Taxonomy-Phylogeny/dp/0713639849

Also regarding #2 picture, a Blackcap would show a much more distinct brown-coloured cap and would be more bulky. This show an Blackcap 1cy http://www.netfugl.dk/pictures.php?id=showpicture&picture_id=56273&language=uk, http://www.netfugl.dk/pictures.php?id=showpicture&picture_id=23434, http://www.netfugl.dk/pictures.php?id=showpicture&picture_id=35937

You might also want to try out the Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell for iOS/Android. It asks you 5 fairly simple questions (location, date, size of bird, color of bird, behavior of bird) and then gives you a list of possible birds based on ebird activity in that area during that time. It's very helpful when you first start out and you don't even know broadly what type of bird you are looking at.

As you become more knowledgable then a good field guide becomes invaluable, and I'll second pallum's suggestion of Sibley's Guide to Birds, Second Edition.

I use an iPhone, usually with my 8x42 binoculars. This time I had a scope with me. I'm never after great photography, I just hope to get something good enough to verify the bird! It's definitely not easy, but I like to go out with as little gear as possible.

I haven't, but have you ever tried a digiscoping adapter like:

Carson HookUpz iPhone 6 Digiscoping Adapter for Most Full Sized Binoculars (IB-642) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S7OG7VW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_sYmFwb673XDSM

The enormous "fingers" are a useful clue for identifying eagles. I like this book for learning my raptors https://www.amazon.com/Hawks-Distance-Identification-Migrant-Raptors/dp/0691135592

I don't know the photo credits, but it's used as the cover for Extreme Birds, which has some interesting factoids

Guides depend on where you're from. For Europe Collins is without a doubt the best guide there is.

As for binoculars, I would recommend getting a simple 10x42 or 12x42 (the first number is the times it magnifies, the second number is the diameter of the objective lens in mm) to start with. A big objective lens is useful because that way the binoculars will get more light and therefore the image will be clearer in low light situations. Too big, however, and your bins will be too big and heavy. They don't have to be expensive at all. Getting a scope and three binoculars + six guides is bad advice for a beginner and completely unnecessary. It will make the hobby seem more complicated and expensive than it really is. All a beginner really needs is one pair of binoculars, one guide and a lot of patience.

As for the bins you recommended, I would only go for the bigger one and leave the two smaller ones. Especially the 8x21 will be quite useless. 8 times magnification is too little for most practical birding and 21mm objective lens will be too dark in forests and when when it's cloudy or starting to get dark. Furthermore a scope is completely unnecessary for a starting birder. It will just be another thing to haul around which you definitely don't want at all when you're just casually starting to discover the hobby.

I would get her This book. IMO its the essential book to have on birds.