We just started doing meaningful bird photography (as opposed to true birdwatching) last year and I agree with you.
The couple of times we've gone with guides who are serious birdwatchers, it is impressive to watch their abilities in this area of multimodal species identification (and male/female/adult/juvenile) in challenging visual and audio environments (and recall of species names in Latin, English, and Spanish).
Meanwhile I'm out there with my camera like "Hey, look at that beautiful red+blue bird!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The couple of times we've gone with guides who are serious birdwatchers, it is impressive to watch their abilities in this area of multimodal species identification (and male/female/adult/juvenile) in challenging visual and audio environments (and recall of species names in Latin, English, and Spanish).
Meanwhile I'm out there with my camera like "Hey, look at that beautiful red+blue bird!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯