Customer Reviews

Know Your Bird Sounds, Volume 1: Yard, Garden, and City Birds

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Lang Elliott, one of the best bird recordists around, has compiled a wonderful collection of virtually all the vocalizations made by 35 species found in eastern North America. This compilation may have a limited number of species covered, but it more than makes up for this in providing so many different calls and songs for each species, and also providing the context in which each vocalization is made. For example, for the American Robin you hear the basic song, the dawn song, the low-grade alarm call, the alarm call given when a raptor flies overhead, and more! Excellent both for learning common bird sounds and for figuring out what the meaning of a particular vocalization is.

As a novice to identifying birds by their songs and calls, I found this CD be exactly what I needed. When buying the item I was really mostly interested in the audio disk. This contains the songs as well as various calls for the common birds in the Eastern Region, and already I'm finding that I'm using the calls I've learned more than the songs to identify birds in my neighbourhood (at least at this time of year). While I initially was concerned that the number of birds the CD covers might be limited, I'm finding that learning even this number of birds is quite challenging for a novice, and a greater number of birds would probably have just confused me at this point. So while not comprehensive in terms of species, it is more detailed for each species, and I can identify most of the birds I encounter quite well. The book contains a photo of each bird and a description of the sounds it makes and when they are made, which is proving surprisingly useful since associating a "pronounciation" of the sounds seems so far an effective aid for learning the calls. Once I master volume 1 and 2, I will probably purchase a more comprehensive collection of songs, but for now I"m more than happy with this.

One thing that surprised me when I first began identifying birds was the variety of songs one type of bird can have. Most bird CDs and software include a limited track of sound, which generally covers only one or two calls. Both Volume 1 (shown here) & Volume 2 (purchased separately) are very useful since they cover the birds you're most likely to hear in depth. You may have trouble identifying birds by their songs and calls unless you know there are several possibilities for each type. Conversely, you may think you're hearing multiple species when the various songs are all coming from one type. The Carolina Wren, for example, has a whole language of different calls; it's the cadence and volume that give it away.

This CD is great for teaching you not only a variety of sounds for a species, but usually includes the common pneumonic that will help you remember--like 'drink your tea' for the Towhee (Volume 2). This has helped my grandchildren too and they thoroughly enjoy identifying a bird when they hear it.

Now, that said, once you've gotten some experience, you will want to come back to this CD to pick up more information about less common calls so you can understand a bit more about what's going on in your bird community. This CD and Volume 2 are like Rosetta Stone for bird language.

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 Elliott and Read's Common Birds and Their Songs (Book and Audio CD). In contrast to "Bird Song Ear Training Guide" this disk provides a variety of lengthy 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, featured above. 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.

Having made progress but still unsatisfied, I finally broke down and bought Birding by Ear: Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides(R)) (3 CD set). It is a nice combination of lots of birds (about 100) 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 a few short quizzes during the narration) and the clips go on for so long, due to the narration and groupings, that you can't really use them to download on an iPod and test yourself. I guess nothing is perfect.

The book and recording arrived quickly and were what I expected. I think they are very good and I'm getting the experience from them that I expected.