Ornithology B/C

[Gavinm9805]

I would recommend starting with the information listed on the All About Birds website Life History section (Habitat, Food Nesting, etc). I would say this is the bare minimum for an "okay" binder. You can get quite a few questions, but I would not bet on placing at a competition. You can see what this might look like in the PDF. This example is far from perfect but is certainly a start. Improvements can be made by adding more info like ID info or a map. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I2CNTj ... sp=sharing

If you are looking to be more competitive I would highly recommend getting a subscription to "Birds of the World". They go into much more depth with pretty much everything, and generally have better diagrams, but it is less organized and lots of information will never get used at competition.

With Ornithology, especially virtual competitions, speed is key. Having a ton of info may be helpful in getting a few extra questions, but may ultimately slow you down while searching for answers. That being said, some tournaments make tests that are absurdly difficult, so all that extra info may be necessary to place. So just remember that when making a binder, be generous when putting information but not careless. (I would not recommend more than 2 pages of info per bird.)

Some other tips would be putting sheet protectors on your pages (makes flipping pages faster), putting tabs throughout your binder (it helps some flip faster but some are indifferent), and choosing a well-made binder (flipping through the binder can get a little rough, and the last thing you would want is accidentally pulling out a page and getting disqualified because your binder rings are weak)

The are other things that can be said such as anatomy and physiology info, but I would focus on getting the basic bird info first.

Hope this helps.

[DragonTownEpic]

I would recommend starting with the information listed on the All About Birds website Life History section (Habitat, Food Nesting, etc). I would say this is the bare minimum for an "okay" binder. You can get quite a few questions, but I would not bet on placing at a competition. You can see what this might look like in the PDF. This example is far from perfect but is certainly a start. Improvements can be made by adding more info like ID info or a map. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I2CNTj ... sp=sharing

If you are looking to be more competitive I would highly recommend getting a subscription to "Birds of the World". They go into much more depth with pretty much everything, and generally have better diagrams, but it is less organized and lots of information will never get used at competition.

With Ornithology, especially virtual competitions, speed is key. Having a ton of info may be helpful in getting a few extra questions, but may ultimately slow you down while searching for answers. That being said, some tournaments make tests that are absurdly difficult, so all that extra info may be necessary to place. So just remember that when making a binder, be generous when putting information but not careless. (I would not recommend more than 2 pages of info per bird.)

Some other tips would be putting sheet protectors on your pages (makes flipping pages faster), putting tabs throughout your binder (it helps some flip faster but some are indifferent), and choosing a well-made binder (flipping through the binder can get a little rough, and the last thing you would want is accidentally pulling out a page and getting disqualified because your binder rings are weak)

The are other things that can be said such as anatomy and physiology info, but I would focus on getting the basic bird info first.

Hope this helps.

Just adding on, I would highly recommend lightly annotating your fact sheets. Just highlighting/bolding cool facts or important information can do wonders for your speed.

[Aaron-H]

Quick Question: How much time is usually given per station?

[Awesome314159]

Hi,
Is there a recommended field guide for ornithology?

I know this reply is kinda late but here's what I would recommend. Along with what others have said, choose a field guide with 1) All the birds you need, 2) Good organization for the birds (would say taxonomically), and 3) A field guide that you are comfortable with and one that you can go through quickly. A field guide with a lot of information will cover everything, but it will take you more time to go through everything, and time is important during the competition. I'll admit, I'm not too much of an expert w/ Ornithology but this is what I know. Currently, I'm using the Nat Geo field guide. I've also heard a lot about the Audubon Field Guide, although it is on the larger end of field guides.

Here is a link I would recommend for choosing field guides: https://www.soinc.org/sites/default/fil ... GUIDES.pdf

[anagene]

Quick Question: How much time is usually given per station?

I'd say that depends on the number of stations and sometimes the number of stations is determined by the number of teams in a time slot. In small tournaments, i either write longer stations or have empty stations at the start of the tournament so the time can vary from 2 minutes to 5 minutes. In larger tournaments, i might have teams moving every two minutes to accommodate the max number of teams in a time slot.

[dli126]

Will there be bird sounds at Nationals?

[kman1234t]

Will there be bird sounds at Nationals?

Nationals recommends you bring headphones to the ornithology test, so I think it is safe to assume that there will be bird songs/calls/etc. on the test.