Features
- Cover Type: Paperback
- Published by: Houghton Mifflin September 23, 1994
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0395712580
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0395712580
-
Book Dimensions:
5.2 x 5 x 1 inches
- Weighs: 8.8 ounces
Product Review
Ever wonder what that trill in the backyard is? Or how to distinguish between all those similar warbler songs? If so, try
Birding by Ear. This great resource for birders all over eastern/central North America conveniently packages three cassettes and an accompanying booklet into a single videocassette-like box. Each tape groups bird species according to acoustic similarity in order to help you learn the basics of bird-song identification. Soon you'll know just by listening whether the bird skulking underneath the bushes is an orange-crowned warbler, a chipping sparrow, or a dark-eyed junco.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Birding by Ear is a unique and important new tool for birders. Now they can easily master one of the most useful and difficult field skills - the ability to recognize birds by their songs and calls. Birding By Ear points out exactly what to listen for to tell one bird from another. As the Peterson Field Guide groups birds by visual similarity, Birding by Ear groups them by acoustic similarity. Dick Walton and Bob Lawson have arranged eighty-five common species into seventeen intelligible learning groups, such as "whistlers," "chippers and trillers," "name-sayers," and "mimics." The entertaining and educational narrative does the same job as the arrows in the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds, pinpointing the precise differences between similar species. The songs themselves are recorded to the highest acoustic standards and are a delight to listen to. Birding by Ear can enable anyone to become a better birder. Use it in conjunction with the Peterson Field Guide to Bird Songs, which provides a thorough catalog of the songs and calls of the familiar birds of eastern and central North America (a Field Guide to Western Bird Songs is also available). Birding by Ear may well become as essential to you as your Field Guide and binoculars.
--This text refers to the
Audio Cassette
edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Birding By Ear: Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides(R)) (Audio CD)
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.
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