Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song (Hardcover)

by Les Beletsky (Author), Jon L. Dunn (Foreword)
Key Phrases: horned grebes, barred owl, alarm calls sound, North America, United States, South America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Here are splendid color illustrations of 250 species of birds, some showing only the male and others showing both the male and female. Drawing from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the book is divided into four parts: seabirds, shorebirds, and water birds; forest birds; woodland birds; and open-country birds. With each illustration is a description of the bird's range in the U.S and Canada and its ecology and behavior. The profiles emphasize the birds' vocalizations--both songs and calls--which can be heard on an audio component that comes with the book. By using this digital audio technology, readers will be able to relate the songs and calls to the birds' appearances. Beletsky, a notable bird biologist, has written a fascinating book that will aid bird-watchers. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Bird Songs is a significant new learning device for birdwatchers. By bringing digital audio technology to the printed book, you can relate the songs and calls of those birds you see from the comfort of your armchair. This unique and informative tool, combining text, illustrations, and sounds, should be on every coffee table. - Dr Paul Green, Director of Citizen Science, National Audubon Society

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (September 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932855416
• ISBN-13: 978-1932855418
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 10.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (191 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,861 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #5 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Zoology > Ornithology
  #5 in	Books > Outdoors & Nature > Birdwatching
  #7 in	Books > Outdoors & Nature > Fauna

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a cool book!, November 16, 2006

By	Jane Anderson (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a (very) amateur birder, I am continually frustrated by hearing birds I can't see and not having a clue as to what that bird might be. This neat book links the description, the drawing AND the sound!

I think it would be an aid to more accomplished birders who try to describe bird calls to others, a joy to children just learning about birds and a help to the avian-challenged rest of us.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great resource and a great gift, December 8, 2006

By	reader "liz" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

I have been birding for a couple years now and I love it, but it is so confounding to hear a really interesting bird call and not know what on earth it could be. This book does for the ears what a regular field guide does for the eyes, and it helps an enthusiastic novice like me get into birding even more. Not to mention that it's just cool and very easy to use. My only wish is that they would have included more calls in each recording, as often the call in the book is a specialized mating or distress call and not necessarily the one you'd be most likely to hear in the field. But I guess they had to go with what they had, and it is quite amazing to get 250 bird calls in one volume, plus pictures and descriptions. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who loves birds or loves someone else who loves birds.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars So much potential, so poorly realized, January 6, 2007

By	Daniel Casali "MacWizard" (Ketchum, ID USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reviewing "Bird Songs" is a bit like reviewing a talking horse. It's so amazing to hear it talk, one overlooks what it is saying.

The songs are wonderful; accessing them is a travesty.

There are two components to this item, the book and the player. The player is a solid state device glued to the back cover of the book. The 250 bird songs in the player are known to the player only by a reference number (1 to 250), which is shown in the player's LCD window.

To hear a song, one touches the play button once to awaken the device, then, by depressing an up or down key, you scroll to the reference number of the desired song. Pressing Play then plays a recorded snippet of the selected bird's song. In short, to hear a song, one must first know its number, and then one must find it.

And herein lies the first major flaw. It is a royal pain to find the reference number of a song. The book has a miserable index, organized alphabetically by common name, that only gives the page number of a bird. One must then go to the page to find the (different) reference number for the song. There is no simple way to relate page numbers to song numbers. And the index itself is difficult to use, as it is not only organized only by common name, but there is no grouping of similar species, so a Marsh Wren is under M and a Canyon Wren is under C. If you want to look up Loon, better look under C for Common Loon. All in tiny, light type. Arrrgh.

Once one has the reference number, the second flaw becomes obvious. Player scrolling acts much like setting a digital clock, first scrolling slowly, then quickly. The numbers wrap around, so one can get to say, 249, from 1 by going backwards. Thus, theoretically, one should never have to scroll more than 125 numbers. It takes a minimum of 15 seconds to scroll 125 numbers. Be prepared to spend a lot of time fiddling with the scroll buttons.

The book. Well, the pictures are nice. The organization is bizarre, by habitat, and there are no range maps, just vague descriptions. But you aren't buying this item for the book.

The songs themselves are fascinating. The recording of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is almost worth the price by itself. And, the Amazon price is very reasonable.