Birding by impression: Here is how this process works.

The correct use of learning properties of the right side of the brain allows the observer to acquire a skill prior to the proper birding by impression: the generation of impressions of the bird’s variables, located in that hemisphere. Here is how this process works.

The right side of the brain

The same information that reaches the brain is treated by each hemisphere in a different way. A speaker of a sports competition translates the images of the match into a passionate speech, using an evaluative language and the properties of the right side of the brain. Meanwhile, the left hemisphere analyses the game, infers strategies, gives names and interprets statistics.

Each hemisphere has a different way of processing information, of thinking. The left hemisphere expresses, analyses, creates symbols, abstracts, estimates, sequences time and draws linear, objective and verifiable, logical conclusions, based on experience. As it is verbal, it analyses an object and gives a name to it using words. In the case of a bird, the observer will analyze its plumage and will give a name to the species. The left hemisphere creates symbols to represent anything or action, it takes a part of the whole or abstracts. It sequences a temporary series of acts. It is literal and therefore it is very bad at using metaphors. It uses reason and facts to obtain a structured explanation from which to draw conclusions. Its explanation is linear, like the beads of a rosary where ideas are kept linked one after the other. It estimates by using figures, that is to say, by using symbols. 

The right hemisphere prioritises sense and intuition. It is not linear and prioritises lateral thinking. In its sensory-visual part it works with images and comprises intelligence and spatial imagination. It carries out operations of integration of objects of the same or different nature. In the first case, it can visualise the different parts that form a whole; in the second case, it can construct complex systems of ideas. 

It likes metaphors, new combinations of ideas and solving problems. It swings well between contradiction and ambiguity. As a result, it prioritises intuition, subjectivity, connectivity and interaction, it is holistic and timeless. It treats perceptions in a visual and not a verbal way. It synthesises the parts, perceives things in context (this aspect is key to the ID by impression). It lives the present. It includes metaphoric relationships, similarity among things, it compares features and variables. It does not situate events in time, but situates things in space and integrates them in a whole.

It likes visualizing and perceiving images. As its conclusions are not supported by reason or facts, it can draw conclusions from partial information, sensations, impressions, or intuitions, both from real images or memories. It can also produce a way of thinking, called holistic, that perceives objects or systems of objects as a whole, in all their complexity, but without the details that conform them. It does not like simplifying or diminishing. It includes structures and systems that integrate the object from a general point of view. Sometimes it draws different conclusions from partial elements, which the left side would find abhorrent.

Generation of impressions on the right side of the brain

The identification of birds by impression is based on characteristic features of the integration of information and the subconscious storage in the right side of the brain. On the contrary, the analysis of plumage resides in the left side of the brain since this is where the analytical features that are stored in the cortical memory predominate. In the identification process used in this book, firstly we assess the structure and behaviour variables with the right side of the brain and then we analyze the plumage through a plumage analysis that treats this information in the left side. Thus, in the last phase of the process, both hemispheres become connected and the observer reaches maximum level of interpretation. In the process of identification of birds with the right side of the brain, the image of the structure and behaviour variables of bird is operated by using specific and evaluative language and vocabulary. The assessed images are stored as impressions in the subconscious memory, the highest quality of our brain. The generated impressions that at first are faint and simple are strengthened by practice of field and desktop, until forming complex impressions.

The process of birding by impression depends on the generation of impressions of birds in the observer's right side of the brain. Over time and practice, the observer will acquire a surprising skill: when sighting a bird, impressions will produce, at a glance, an ID conclusion. It will be possible to produce positive identifications of birds.

In the process of generating impressions, the observer starts evaluating the main structure variables: size, shape and small structural variables. The structural variables are very regular marks, present in species at any age, sex and plumage status.

Next, the subordinate variables of every main variable should be operated. The subordinate variables of the main variable “small structural variables” include head, neck, bill, wings, tail and legs. These subordinate variables must be observed and, after a sum and synthesis operation, they will integrate the main variable “small structural variables”.

In the process of operating variables, through the formulation of evaluative sentences from the observation of the bird, the impressions corresponding to that variable or addition of variables are generated. Then, the results are integrated in a synthesis sentence or structure profile. The observer has generated a synthesis impression of the structure and now they can contemplate the structure profile in its totality. A collateral effect of having a good picture of the bird's structure is that this helps to place it in the taxonomic family to which it belongs. 

Once the structure profile is obtained, the observer will try to acquire the behaviour profile. To do so, they will assess the behaviour variables, to the extent that it is possible as they are free-living birds, in order to generate the corresponding impressions. The main and subordinate variables of behaviour included in this book are: movements (repetitive, functional and mating), flight, vocalizations and the “ecological position” (season and habitat). Again, once variables have been observed, a behaviour profile will be elaborated. Thus, the observer will achieve a whole impression of the behaviour variables of the species. In many cases, behaviour is decisive to identify the species under observation. 

In the evaluation of variables and elaboration of the structure and behaviour profiles, the repetitive practice generates a lot of integrated, simple and complex, impressions of birds. 

English book in Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1981629378/

Spanish book in Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1978245297/