Customer Reviews

Common Birds and Their Songs (Book and Audio CD)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a grandmother, just learning the names of the birds whose sounds I have enjoyed for years. Now my youngest grandchild, Emma, age 4 months, is learning the sounds and pictures. She sings right along with them. This book is truly amazing. CD tracks can be selected "by bird" or can be listened to in order. And the geographic area map lets us know if any particular bird is one we might see in our vicinity. Five Stars.

This is a great book! Elliott and Read combine stunning photographs of fifty songbirds with lively information about their lives. And that's not all. They ice the cake with an audio CD that will fill your house with song. The recordings give a range of vocalizations for each species, so the listener can sit back and gain his own sense of how the birds sound in the field. There's never been another book quite like this one, and I recommend it most enthusiastically to bird lovers and their friends.

Though I was surprised to receive such a small sized book, the picures are beautiful and the lessons very helpful. I am new to birding and have no doubt I can improve my bird identification with the help of this CD and guidebook. I do wish the veery and phoebe were included. Great book for anyone wishing to learn which bird goes with which song. So much fun! Would highly recommend. I'm thrilled.

I am new to serious birdwatching, but already own half a dozen books on North American birds. I find this book and companion CD especially nice because of it's portability and ease of use. The photographs are clear, and the information concise. The songs of the birds are likewise, and if you have a cat, you will amuse them along with yourself as you listen...

I am a budding bird-watching enthusiast and this is the first book I have purchased. I love it! I do wish it covered more birds, but the descriptions of the birds it does include are very informative. The photographs are some of the best I've seen!!! The CD is also great for beginners because you never really realize how many of those calls are familiar to you until you hear them with a name. I know now there are Baltimore Orioles near my house (though I've never seen them) because I hear that very distinct call all the time! Now I've put out special food for them and I'll just have to wait and see!!! I recommend this book and CD to all - especially beginners like myself!!!

My child just became interested in birds and this book is awesome for a child to learn what bird is what, and how they sound. My five-year-old child absolutely loves putting the CD in and paging through the book as he listens. I have even learned more about birds, and it is something fun we can do together!

I decided to get serious about learning bird song for the Eastern US but had a hard time figuring out which CD to buy. What I found was no one CD does it all, they all have pros and cons. I ended up with 4 CDs -- and a DVD. Below is my take on them. In the end, while it took a bit of persistence, learning bird song has been an extremely rewarding experience, adding a new dimension to any walk.

I started with Feith's Bird Song Ear Training Guide: Who Cooks for Poor Sam Peabody? Learn to Recognize the Songs of Birds from the Midwest and Northeast States (1 CD). The big advantage of this CD is that it gives the song/call first, and then identifies it. So you can download the clips to an iPod, set it on random, and constantly test yourself. It covers 189 species, which is a lot. Finally, the narrator has a pleasant voice and often gives mnemonic suggestions (e.g., "Over here dear" for the Baltimore Oriole). This CD has two big disadvantages. First, many of the songs/calls are very short (many less than a few seconds). Second, there are very few songs/calls given for each bird (usually only one or two). In retrospect, they simply tried to cram too many birds onto one CD. These two defects greatly undercut the value of an otherwise good disk. Also, the birds are coupled so that if you download clips and try and randomize them you will always get the same two birds paired in the same order (the birds are ordered by alphabet). This makes it hard to learn the second birds based solely on the song of the bird - the Turkey always comes after the Towhee.

A friend gave me the product on this page: Elliott and Read's "Common Birds and Their Songs." In contrast to "Bird Song Ear Training Guide" this disk provides a variety of lengthy high quality songs/calls for each bird. It pretty thoroughly covers 50 of the most common birds. It also comes with a glossy softcover book with great pictures and informative one page write-ups. I have a few problems with this disk. First, the bird is identified before each call, so it's hard to test yourself. Second, I'm sure Lang Elliott is a very nice man, but he doesn't have the most sonorous voice. Finally, the audio CD does not provide any mnemonics and there are only a few in the book.

Another friend gave me Elliott's Know Your Bird Sounds, Volume 1: Yard, Garden, and City Birds. This is similar to "Common Birds and Their Songs" but only covers 35 birds (as opposed to 50) although some are not included in "Common Birds." It also comes with a book with nice photographs but has less information on the birds and just focuses on describing their songs. The CD includes more information on the bird song than "Common Birds" (Elliott essentially reads the book) but has the same drawbacks; mainly, it identifies the bird before the song.

Having read that it greatly helps to simultaneously see and hear a bird singing its song, I purchased Feith's DVD Birds, Birds, Birds! An Indoor Birdwatching Field Trip DVD Video Bird and Bird Song Guide. This was a disappointment. In general it is the "Bird Song Ear Training Guide" CD (see above) matched up with still photographs and occasional video footage of the appropriate bird. It includes about a dozen more birds than the CD and can be arranged by "sound alikes" and set up to give one a quiz, but the drawbacks that undercut the CD - the brevity of the songs and lack of diversity of calls per bird - undercut the DVD. If you want to look at a bird while you hear its song, consider buying one of Elliott's CD/book combinations, like the one on this page.

Having made progress but still unsatisfied, I finally broke down and bought Walton and Lawson's Birding by Ear: Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides(R)). It is a nice combination of lots of birds (about 85) with a long and diverse set of song/calls for each. The birds are also categorized by the similarity of song, which I found a helpful learning device. It comes with a paper pamphlet giving a very short description of each bird and a nice list of mnemonics at the back. The CD gives a fair amount of information along with the songs and is easy to listen to. The biggest drawbacks are the birds are identified before the song (although there are some quizzes arranged by habitat that compensate for this somewhat) and the clips go on for so long, due to the narration and groupings, that you can't easily download them onto an iPod and test yourself. I guess nothing is perfect.

As a new initiate into the world of birding, I found this book and audio cd to be very helpful in identifying bird songs. A numbered list of cd tracks is provided in the book, enabling the listener to skip to the songs they want to hear on the cd. The book is informative and includes beautiful photographs of each species. I love it and highly recommend it.

This book and CD are superbly done as are all of Lang Elliot's bird offerings. The pictures are wonderful and the text is useful for identification. There are 50 species covered in four categories: Backyard/City, Countryside, Wetland and Forest.

The CD tracks for each bird are introduced only with the bird's name and the number that corresponds with the page number in the book. Each track is quite long--from 1-2 minutes--and includes various calls and songs of the bird as you would hear them strung together in the wild. This is a great bird CD to play in the background while you're doing other things as it's pleasant to listen to and you unconsciously become familiar with the songs. I like to have this playing on my computer while I work and if I am absorbed and don't catch the name I can switch over to my iTunes to see what bird is singing.

I have not only this CD/book, but also Know Your Bird Sounds, Volumes 1&2, and Music of the Birds. I enjoy each for different reasons. This one is my favorite for just listening to the birds to absorb their sound and gain familiarity, as there is little description. Others describe the different calls in more detail, or describe an exchange or the melody, which can add to your understanding of bird language. This one gives you the aha moment of `I've heard that on the CD' while weeding the garden or whatever, and leads you to look for the bird whose sound caught your attention.

Common Birds and Their Songs (Book and Audio CD)
May 16, 2011 What a delightful book & CD!

I was looking for a bird book for beginners. This is it! It lists 50 of the more popular birds in North America. The pictures are stunningly gorgeous, providing a wonderful recognition aide for beginners. The soundtrack is awesome!! Mr. Elliott has provided fantastic, clear sound files of the songs of these birds, complete with the name of the bird attached to the sound file. This is an audio CD. I wanted to have the sounds outside with me on my walks so I put them on my MP3 player. The title of each sound file (identifying the bird) is clear and easy to access. I take the book and can quickly refer to the bird pictures and information that goes with each sound file. There is also information provided on each bird. This is a short book but covers that which a beginner would need. Grade school children through beginner adults can learn birding from this book.

These are the birds: BACKYARD/CITY CLASSIFICATION -- American Robin, Baltimore Oriole, Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, Blue Jay, Am. Crow, Mourning Dove, Northern Flicker, Downy Woodpecker, House Wren, Black-Capped Chickadee, White Breasted Nuthatch, Cedar Waxwing, House Finch, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Chipping Sparrow, Evening Grosbeak, COUNTRYSIDE -- Killdeer,Red-tailed Hawk, Am. Kestrel, Eastern Kingbird, Barn Swallow, Eastern Bluebird, Yellow Warbler, Indigo Bunting, Am. Goldfinch, Eastern Towhee, Eastern Meadowlark, Brown-headed Cowbird, WETLAND -- Canada Goose, Mallard, Wood Duck, Great Blue Heron, Belted Kingfisher, Tree Swallow, Marsh Wren, Common Yellowthroat, Red-winged Blackbird, FOREST -- Ruffed Grouse, Wild Turkey, Barred Owl, Great Horned Owl, Pileated Woodpecker, Wood Thrush, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Red-eyed Vireo, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Dark-eyed Junco.

I take my mini-recorder with me on my walks and record the birds that I hear at that time. Then, I can take my time going through the sound files to match the sound that I heard on the walk (you do not always see the bird, especially if you don't know what to watch for). I am finding this book and sound files to be very helpful. Hopefully you will do likewise. I will be buying more books by Lang Elliott and Marie Read!

Happy birding!