Parts of a Bird: First, learn the different parts of a bird. When you see a bird, try to notice what color and shape each part of the bird is. For example, if you saw the bird shown below, you might say it was brown. But if you looked at it carefully, you would notice its back, wings, and tail are brown, but its crown is black and white, its bill, legs, and feet are orange, and its breast and belly are light gray.

Bird Wings:

from ALASKA'S BIRDS

Bill shape is a good identification clue. You can also tell a lot about a bird's feeding habits by the shape of its bill.

Insect eaters have slender, pointed bills (flycatchers, warblers, thrushes, and swallows).

Seed eaters have short, stout, cone-shaped bills for cracking seeds (pine grosbeaks, redpolls, and sparrows).

Woodpeckers have strong, straight, chisel-like bills for drilling into wood to catch insects.

Mud probers have long, slender bills for catching animals in the mud (dunlins, yellowlegs, and other sandpipers).

Water strainers have spoon-like bills with edges that strain food from the water (mallards, pintails, shovelers, and wigeons).

Fish eaters often have long, sharp bills for catching or spearing fish (kingfishers, grebes, loons, and mergansers).

Birds of prey or "raptors" have strong, hooked beaks with sharp edges (eagles, hawks, owls, and shrikes).

from ALASKA'S BIRDS

Legs and feet. The length of a bird's legs and shape of its feet are also clues to bird identification. Leg and feet shapes also provide information about where a bird lives, how it captures its food, and how it moves from place to place. Wading birds have long legs and toes (yellowlegs and great blue herons).

Perching birds have toes for grasping. Pressure on the inside of the foot causes the toes to lock around a perch. That is how chickadees can sleep without falling off the branch.

Swimming birds like ducks, puffins, and loons have webbed feet for paddling in water. Grebes are also swimming birds, but their feet are lobed.

Tree climbers have wide-spread toes with curved claws. Some woodpeckers have two toes in front and two toes in back. Three-toed woodpeckers have two toes in front and one in back.

Birds of prey like hawks, owls, and eagles have strong legs and feet with sharp, hooked claws to grasp and carry prey.

Ground feeders like sparrows and juncos often scratch the ground for food. Their feet have three forward toes and one hind toe.

From ALASKA'S BIRDS

Wing shapes are good indicators of flight style. Both wing shape and flight patterns are clues to identification.

Pointed wings are found on fast-flying birds like falcons and swallows.

Short, rounded wings are good for quick takeoff but short flights. Grouse and sparrows have this type of wing. Long, broad wings are soaring wings like those of hawks and eagles.

Tail shape indicates how a bird flys.

A long, forked tail is for steering during fast flight. Swallows use their forked tails to make quick dips and turns while chasing insects.

A stiff tail provides leverage for tree climbers. Woodpeckers use their tail for support when they peck tree trunks in search of insects.

A broad, rounded tail is typical of soaring birds like hawks.

A long, narrow tail is typical of falcons and acts as a rudder during swift dives. SOURCE: http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/curriculum/units/birdslesson1.html