After publishing my Songbirds last year, I now lovingly revised all birds to make them even more distinctive! The new version is now available as a poster in German and English from Posterlounge (also eBay!) and printed on cards, mugs, bags, shirts, pillows, towels, blankets, cases, stickers and other products from Redbubble and Søciety6.

Identifying Garden Birds or Songbirds

With this identification Chart, infographic or learning poster, you can identify, learn and determine 56 Native European Songbirds or Garden Birds such as Blackbird / Merle, Blackcap / Blackjack, Blackstart, Blue Tit / Nun, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Carrion Crow, Chiffchaff, City / Street Dove, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Crested Tit, Cuckoo, Dunnock, Fieldfare, Firecrest, Garden Warbler, Goldcrest, Golden Oriole, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker, Greenfinch, Grosbeak / Hawfinch, House Martin, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Jay, Kingfisher, Lesser Whitethroat, Linnet / Flax Finch, Long-Tailed Tit, Magpie, Marsh Tit, Marsh Warbler, Nightingale, Nuthatch, Pied Flycatcher, Pied Wagtail, Redstart, Reed Bunting, Robin, Serin Finch, Skylark, Song Thrush / Mavis, Spotted Flycatcher, Starling, Swallow, Swift / Martlet, Tree Creeper, Tree Sparrow / Field Sparrow, Wood Pigeon, Wren, Willow Warbler and Yellowhammer / Yellow Bunting, from the families of Sparrows, Tits, Woodpeckers, Finches, Jays, Buntings, Warblers, Thrushes, Treecreepers, Larks, Flycatchers, Redstarts and Pigeons.

For species with little or no dimorphism, I show a single bird, while for species with more pronounced dimorphism, I show the usually more intensely colored male in front and behind the more neutrally colored female.

How I work on identification Charts

What I’m illustrating here is actually the identification charts I always wanted to have myself! I’m super excited about birds, but at the same time, I’m really bad at remembering names and characteristics, so I tend to need cheat sheets. And if I draw them myself – and look at them often enough afterwards –, I sometimes actually notice what’s what… :)

It’s surprisingly time-consuming to not just copy a pretty photo, but instead to first understand and then draw some sort of generalized cross-section, i.e. the blueprint of the species, so to speak, from countless pictures that all depict the personal characteristics of the respective unique object, but that is exactly what helps so much with identification, and that is why I – in general – very much prefer to identify flora and fauna with simple drawings than with photos.

Through various commissions, my charts turned into a series – first with leaf shapes, animal tracks and bird flight in Lily Lux Notizbuch, then with tree shapes, tree fruits, tree shoots, forest animals and water animals for “Waldstück” by Niedersächsische Landesforsten as well as the cooperation with Hidden Tracks for detailed animal tracks.

If you think that I’ve made errors in my details, feel free to kindly let me know, and please link evidence. Thank you!

 Identification Charts for Posters and Products

This print goes perfectly well with my – meanwhile quite extensive – series of Natural Science Identification Charts with various infographics from flora and fauna, which are also available from the Posterlounge (also via eBay!). ➔

In addition, most of my guides are also available as postcards, greeting cards or small-format art prints, as well as printed products such as shirts, mugs, cushions, carpets, mats, towels, blankets, curtains, notebooks, tablets, wrapping paper, stickers, magnets, sleeves, cases, skins, bags and much more, at Redbubble [EU/US] and Søciety6 [US]! ➔

How I started Drawing for Birding

It all started with the songbirds in the Wunderbare Welt der Lily Lux, in the background of her room in the spring page: “In spring, Lily sometimes sets an alarm, to not miss the bird concert in the very morning.” … In the Lily Lux Notizbuch, these exact birds have their very own identification page, and I’ve been watching them ever since :)

At our bird feeders and bird baths in Wuppertal, we see blackbirds every day (they like to discreetly point out to us when there is no more food or water left, and they often accompany us when we work in the garden!), great tits, robins, sparrows and chaffinches, often also pigeons, magpies and crows, more rarely goldfinches, greenfinches, blue tits, bullfinches, nuthatches, long-tailed tits or jays, and in the old orchard there are sometimes even wagtails, thrushes and treecreepers. In addition to swallows and swifts, the laughing green woodpecker, chiffchaff and oriole are often audible but rarely clearly visible, and I even saw a kingfisher at the neighboring dam recently!

Literature and Apps

Since I started making identification charts, I acquired a fairly extensive nature library, which I mainly use to coordinate characteristics, but in which objects are often misleadingly depicted or described, so it can It can be quite informative, if in doubt, to always consult more than one book… Those are the books I consult most often:

★ Peter Holden / Trevor Boyer: “Wir entdecken und bestimmen Vögel”, Ravensburger Taschenbücher 1978
★ Rob Hume: “Birds of Britain and Europe – The definitive photographic Field Guide”, RSPB / DK 2002
★ Richard Lewington / Ian Lewington: “Guide to Garden Wildlife”, Bloomsbury Wildlife Guides 2019
★ Marianne Taylor / Stephan Message: “RSPB ID Spotlight Garden Birds Fold-out Chart”, Bloomsbury 2020
★ Felix / Tomann / Hisek: “Der große Naturführer – Unsere Tier- und Pflanzenwelt in Farbe”, Kosmos 1984

Furthermore, I’m quite excited about apps that automatically identify birdsongs, like Birdnet (free) and Zwitschomat (both available for iOs and Android). And I think I’ll have to make a scrapbook for seen and heard songbirds :)

Thanksgiving

Great thanks to Matthias Klesse, Angelika and Reinhard Luckhaus for their support, enthusiasm and testing!

The post Art Prints | Identification Chart for Garden Birds first appeared on Iris Luckhaus.