Skip to content
Pathfinder emblemPathfinders Wiki (Unofficial)

Birds - Advanced

Overview

Improve your birding skills as you identify more and more birds and learn their habits. Maybe someday you’ll become an ornithologist!

Requirements

1. Have the Birds honor.

2. Know the laws protecting birds in your state, province, or country.

3. Describe a bird accurately by using standard names for each part of its body.

4. Find answers to either a. OR b.

  • a. In what ways are the feet, legs, and beak of birds variously modified to adapt them to their environment?
  • b. On hummingbirds:
    • i. What do hummingbirds eat in the wild and how often?
    • ii. Why aren’t hummingbirds afraid of large mammals or birds?
    • iii. How do their wings move differently from other birds?
    • iv. How fast do they fly?
    • v. How fast do the wings and heart beat?
    • vi. How is the tongue shaped?

5. Identify on a bird’s wing the primaries, secondaries, coverts, axillars, and alulae.

6. Describe the functions and purposes of bird banding, telling in particular how banding contributes to our knowledge about bird movements.

7. Name the main migratory bird flyways used by birds in your continent.

8. Give the migration routes and terminal destinations for ten different migratory bird species.

9. Describe at least three different ways that birds are able to orient themselves in their movements across the globe.

10. Make a list of 60 species of wild birds, including birds from at least ten different families, that you personally have observed and positively identified by sight out of doors. For each species on this list note the following:

  • a. Name
  • b. Date observed
  • c. Place observed
  • d. Habitat (i.e., field, woods, river, lake, etc.)
  • e. Status where observed (permanent resident, winter resident, summer resident, migrant, vagrant)

11. Present lists of birds, showing the greatest number of species seen out of doors in:

  • a. One day (with at least six hours in the field)
  • b. One week
  • c. Your lifetime (all birds observed by you since you began birding to date)

12. Make a list of ten species of wild birds that you personally have positively identified by sound out of doors, and describe or imitate these bird sounds as best you can.

13. Lead a group in a bird observation walk or tell two Bible stories in which a bird was significant.

Answer key & resources

Master awards

This honor counts toward:

Investiture Achievement

This honor is required, suggested or listed as an option in:

Adapted from AY Honors/Birds - Advanced on the Pathfinder Wiki, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. See the original page's history for its authors.
Found a mistake? Report it.

This is an unofficial community site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, the North American Division, or the official Pathfinder Wiki. Content is adapted from the Pathfinder Wiki under CC BY-SA 3.0.