Field guide · 4th edition

The Birds of VR

The birds world creators reach for most often, where they tend to put them, and how to tell them apart. Every one of them is a real bird, and every field mark here is the real bird’s, so what you learn in the hide works out of doors too.
Part one

The common species

No. 01 · Very common

European robin

Field marks: orange-red face and breast edged in grey, olive-brown back, a round, upright little body. Found on fences, gateposts and the handles of garden spades.

In VR: the most-modelled small bird there is. Often perched somewhere you would put a robin on a Christmas card, which is fair, because that is where they sit.

No. 02 · Very common

Herring gull

Field marks: grey back, white head and body, black wingtips with white spots, a yellow bill with a red spot near the tip.

In VR: any world with a harbour, a pier or a chip shop. Usually seen circling. Watch long enough and you will learn exactly where it turns.

No. 03 · Common

Carrion crow

Field marks: black all over, glossy in good light, with a thick black bill. Bigger and heavier than a jackdaw, which has a grey nape and a pale eye.

In VR: rooftops, dead trees, anything gothic. Often comes as a flock that rises together when you walk near it, which is one of the great small joys of the hobby.

No. 04 · Common near water

Grey heron

Field marks: tall and grey, with a long neck, a dagger bill and a black stripe over the eye that runs back into a thin plume.

In VR: the edge of almost every pond worth the name. Stands perfectly still, which is accurate, and makes it the easiest bird in VR to photograph.

Plate 1

Reading a bird

Beginners are taught to look in order: size and shape first, then the colour of the breast, then the bill, then anything odd. A robin is small and round with an orange front and a fine bill for insects. If the bill is thick and the front is pink, you are looking at a bullfinch, and you should write it down, because they are rarer.

Plate 1 of the Nestwatch field guide. A European robin in profile on a branch, with callouts for the orange-red face and breast, the grey border to the breast, the olive-brown back, the fine dark bill and the large dark eye, and a scale bar of about 14 centimetres.
Plate 1, from the field guide. Drawn from a robin on a branch in a pine world, and checked against a real one.
Part two

Rarer sightings

No. 05 · Uncommon

Common kingfisher

Field marks: electric blue back, orange underparts, a long straight bill. Very small, very fast, gone before you have said “kingfisher.”

In VR: river worlds, now and then, perched on one particular branch. Creators who model a kingfisher tend to model it well. We think they are showing off, and we approve.

No. 06 · Uncommon

Snowy owl

Field marks: large and white, flecked with black, with round yellow eyes and no ear tufts at all.

In VR: snowy maps and, suspiciously often, wizarding ones. Usually sitting on something tall, looking at you, in a way that makes the whole hide sit up straighter.

Unconfirmed

The tree-coloured shape

One member logged a “large brown bird” high in a pine in a forest world, and the whole Society spent forty minutes on it before Corin got close enough to establish that it was part of the tree. It is still in the log, with a question mark.

A note on counting

What goes on the list

Anything a world’s creator meant to be a bird goes on the Society list: modelled, animated, drawn on a sign, or only heard in the ambient sound. A bird you identify by its song alone counts, just as it would out of doors.

Somebody else’s avatar does not count, however good the feathers. People are people, and we do not log them.