Birding by Ear: Western is a unique and important new tool for birders. Now they can master one of the most useful and difficult field skills – the ability to recognize birds by their songs and calls. Birding By Ear: Western 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: Western groups them by acoustic similarity. Dick Walton and Bob Lawson have arranged ninety-one common species into nineteen intelligible learning groups – “sing-songers,” “trillers,” “name-sayers,” “warbling songsters,” and many others. 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: Western can enable anyone to become a better birder. Use it in conjunction with the Peterson Field Guide to Western Bird Songs, which provides a thorough catalog of the songs and calls of the familiar birds of western North America. Birding by Ear: Western may well become as essential to you as your Field Guide and binoculars.Ever wonder what that trill in the backyard is? Or how to distinguish between all those similar warbler songs? Try Birding by Ear. This great resource for birders all over western 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.
Excellent intro to bird songs I’ve birded for a number of years but I wanted to be able to distinguish birds by their calls, especially the shy ones. This CD volme was the perfect introduction. Dick Walton’s informal, almost folksy, comments made for enjoyable listening and learning. Sure there are only 91 species but one great sampling. Now that he has taught me “hooks” and “handles” I have graduated to using the Stokes CDs, but at least I can now differentiate closely related songs thanks to Mr. Walton.
Awesome Tutorial This CD is great. I am a Naturalist and have taught in nature for many years. I decided to update my old audio tape set (yes, that is how long I have been teaching) of bird sounds with a CD. This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, which was a reference for all the different bird sounds I might encounter, but in some ways it was even better. It is a tutorial that teaches the listener how to recognize different types of sounds from the same species, as well as how to identify many common…
These are great cds. I’ve been using the Eastern cds and am about to move out west, so picked this one up. Not anything exciting you would play for having company over, but has been perfect for me to study birdsong in groups that make sense while I’m driving in my car.