Customer Reviews

Peterson Field Guide(R) to Eastern/Central Birding by Ear (Peterson Field Guide Series)

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Walton and Lawson's series of audio guides to bird songs are perhaps the best available for the beginning student of bird songs in North America. The reason for this is simple. Beginners need repetition to learn bird songs, as well as lengthy recordings that repeat each bird sound several times. These guides provide that, along with a detailed narration that points out specific differences between similar songs.

There are four guides by Walton and Lawson that use this format: three "Birding by Ear" Guides (one for eastern and central North America, one for western North America, and a second volume for the east called "More Birding by Ear") and another guide called "Backyard Bird Song."

All the guides are three CDs, except for "Backyard Bird Song" which is one disc, and is essentially a "junior" edition of the eastern/central edition of "Birding by Ear." All of the species on this single disc are also on the full-length guide, and are common garden birds found over much of the continent. This recording would provide good listening for someone who finds the full-length "Birding by Ear" overwhelming. In addition, it contains the sounds of several mammal species common in suburban and rural settings, which are not found on "Birding by Ear."

The guides feature very good sound quality and generally excellent field recordings. (The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics provided most of the recordings for all the guides except "More Birding by Ear," where Lang Elliott's Nature Sound Studio and the Borror Lab are the primary sources of material). My only complaint (and this is a highly personal bias) is Walton's over-reliance on phonetic or verbal interpretations of bird songs to serve as a memory aid. Does anybody's ear actually interpret the brown-headed cowbird's song as "bubble, bubble, zee" or the great horned owl's call as "Who's awake, me too?" I can't hear this by any stretch of my imagination. But as Walton rightly points out, each person's ear is a bit different so if this works for you, all the better.

Walton and Lawson have created invaluable tools for learning the too-often ignored language of nature around us. With most of these guides now available at reduced prices, I'd say buy them all if you can and you'll have an instant library of North American bird song, complete with a narrated tour to take you into this special world.

This is a great intro to bird songs. It has many common birds as well as several I had rarely seen but often heard. Its strength is that it is arranged in groups of similar-sounding birds, with narration that ties them together with memorization clues. This makes listening on my way to work amusing, and memorization not too tough. The weakness is that it is not easy to find the song of a particular bird if you want to identify something you just heard. A good companion would be a CD with lots of individual songs easily searchable, although such a format would not be nearly as easy to listen to for more than a few minutes.

On the whole, a great start. Bike rides are more fun too, since you always hear more birds than you can see. After two years of listening to this each spring, I'm ordering the sequel, More Birding by Ear, as well as a more complete song collection for searching.

If you live in North America east of the Mississipi and want to identify birds by ear, read on...

This audio set is a very well thought out and produced tutorial for introducing beginning "ear" birders to the world of birding by ear. The audio quality is excellent with several renditions of each song and call. The pace is well suited to the target audience - only after repeated listening will you want to skip ahead through sections. The groupings of similar songs seem well designed, and reflect situations in the field that pose problems. Each song is described verbally, with an onomatopoetic description. I wish the CD were coded so that sub-tracks could be accessed directly without the introductory descriptions, but the design of this set isn't as encyclopedia of song, rather as short course in learning how to identify song.

Buy this and the "More birding by ear", listen to them for 10 - 30 minutes a day (great drive time listening), and master the art of birding by ear!

....This set of audio tapes was a disappointment to me. I had wanted a set of bird songs to accompany my new Peterson Eastern Birds field guide, 4th edition.( Previously, I had owned the 2nd edition and its excellent, page-coordinated, accompanying tapes and had used them for years.) I bought this new set of audio tapes blind, so to speak, because they were shrink-wrapped with no real description visible. No one in any of the retail stores I consulted knew anything about them nor was willing to break into the shrink-wrapping.
....Birding by Ear, Eastern/Central is actually a 3-tape short course in identifying bird calls. It is essentially useless for field identification. To make use of this set of tapes, one would have to sit down and listen and listen and listen to interminable commentary by a sonorous male voice introducing bird calls in clusters that are of minimal use because they are grouped by similarity, which often doesn't translate into geography or habitat. The second side of the third tape is a "review" that is actually a test.... one must listen to a series of unidentified songs and try to remember what they are, after having spent the hours required to listen to the other 5 sides of the tapes.
.... The up side of this set of tapes is that the bird song recordings are excellent. They include both the song and the call. (But they are useless in the field in this format.)

Most birdsong CDs/tapes are lengthy "lists" of birdsongs. The "Birding by Ear" series is a unique tutorial that teaches you to recognise and recall birdsongs. If you want to learn to identify birds by their songs and calls this is the product for you! Ideal for birders East of the Mississippi!

This book and cassettes changed my way of hearing the world. Like the joy and surprise of dreaming for the first time in a learned language, the Birding by Ear tapes and CDs open a new perspective on human surroundings which, it turns out, is populated by hundreds of species speaking to each other (and to you). A walk in the country or city is foerever altered if you hear and recognize birdsong.

Great learning tool for the novice and a great reminder for the seasoned veteran.

Using memorable examples and mnemonic devices that are actually relevant to any birder in the field, Walton brings birders of all levels a treasure trove of insight in his "Birding by Ear."This collection differs from other "bird song libraries" in several ways. First, the narrator comments on each species, making sure to point out the "gotcha" clues that are evident in every birdsong. And, he speaks to all levels of birders: from the backyard enthusiast to the tried and true birder who has only relied upon eyesight up 'til this point.

An unqualified 5 stars! And, its great fun to play this tape nice and loud, with the windows rolled down at a red light! (you'll get some interesting looks.)