Bird watching has become a hobby for many people over the last 40 years. There are some who are devoted to seeing every kind of bird in a nation, a hemisphere or even every continent. Most are just average people who casually watch these animals via a backyard feeder or an occasional trip to a vacation get away. The hobby can be as involved as you want to make it for yourself. There are few real rules but a good standard to keep when undertaking this is a common moral of "do no harm".
The first thing a birder must be able to do is identify different parts of a birds structure to be able to clearly identify what type of bird is being observed. Body shape, feather colors, beak shape and size, tail length and shape are all factors in determining what exactly you are seeing. Hooked beaks are common in the raptors. Thick triangluar beaks are common in the seed eaters, such as sparrows and finches. Narrow short beaks are common in the insect eaters like the familiar swallows and many types of warblers. These things can help a new birder narrow down the scope of possible birds rather quickly, allowing time to concentrate on other features, such as feather colors, to begin to determine what type of bird is being seen.
Another factor that helps narrow down the scope of what is being seen is the location you are watching birds at. Deep old growth forests will provide different types of birds than open prairie landscapes or watery marshlands. The season will also change the numbers and types of birds at any given location. Spring and fall migration times will offer the largest variety of birds for this area, but some of these times provide limited windows of opportunity to view the large numbers of birds in a given location.
Spring is my personal favorite time to bird watch for several reasons. First, the lack cover hiding the birds allows for me to spy further into the woodlands and marshes than I can in the fall. The fast pace of the bird movement inspires me to act quickly when I see numbers begining to arrive. The change of the season to spring also tends to act as a buffer between large movements of birds that is more defined than in the fall. One drawback is the birds tend to move thru the area faster in the spring than in the fall. Missing a week of watching can cost you the opportunity to see large numbers of swans (for example) or Kestrels as another example. Others prefer the fall to devote time to this hobby, as the birds move a bit slower as they teach their young the migration and food sources of the different environments they will pass thru.
As you become familiar with the more common birds to your area, you begin to memorize exactly what you are seeing. This frees up you mind to absorb new and more advanced identification processes. Soon after this point you will begin to memorize the sounds and calls of the common birds. This part of the identification process becomes important as you advance. You will hear unusual bird calls comming from thickets and trees and will be drawn to the new noises because you can ignore the ones you have become familiar with. I always am alerted to the return of the dark eyed junco each fall by their calls first, then I will spot them flitting about in the underbrush. The calls of the Sandhill Crane will carry for what seems to be miles before I will sight the birds. I have increased the numbers of swans I see each migration by having become familiar with their calls and have seen 150 birds flying over so high they are white spots in the skys, but I know they are swans now because of the calls they make.
Another method of idenification that will become useful as you advance in your skills is knowing flight patterns of individual birds. When looking into the distance, a woodpeckers flight pattern is very different from a starlings flight pattern.
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