Kit Ellis came up with an excellent review of some bird sounds recordings. Here
are a few additional thoughts and some additional reviews:

CD's are definitely the way to go. Sound is better than tape (no tape hiss),
they're almost indestructible, you can (almost) go directly to the bird you
want and it's easier to make tapes from them.

Each product has some pluses and minuses: numbers of species, repetitions,
length of sound bite, narration, etc. I use all of the products mentioned
below since they complement & supplement each other. For this review I
compared Bewick's Wren and Ruby-crowned Kinglet on each since these two species
have considerable variability from bird to bird and probably location to
location. Indeed, it's sometimes hard to tell that a Bewick's Wren from
different birds in the field is the same species, so hearing the variations on
the theme really helps.

Western Birding by Ear. Peterson/Houghton Mifflin. 1990. 3 cds. $35 list (a
bargain). Only 93 of the tougher species to id, but long sequences of several
birds allow lots of comparison. Indexed by type of song, habitat and
alphabetically. Indispensible.

Bird Songs of the Pacific States. Cornell Lab. of Ornithology. 1996. 2 cds.
np. Long sequences of each song, the way you'd hear them in nature, from just
one bird, usually. Many songs different from the other products. Useful for
taping. They imply that the sounds are from western birds. 130 sp. indexed by
habitat and alphabetically.

Peterson Field Guide to Western Bird Songs. Houghton Mifflin. 2 cds. $40
list. Five hundred and twenty two sp. in very short sequences of calls and
songs. A species may be represented by birds from different localities,
including Maine, Florida & New York so local dialects will be sometimes
confusing and may not be typical of what you hear locally. Very complete with
some birds you're unlikely to ever hear in the U.S.

National Audubon Soc. Interactive CD-ROM Guide to NA Birds. np. I liked it at
first but found navigating around to be slow and frustrating. As Kit points
out you get to see and hear the bird so it may help with memorization. You can
view several other plumages, stages, sexes, etc. but hear only one song and
maybe no call. For example, you can view the "eastern" and "western" varieties
of the "Rufous-sided Towhee" but hear only one eastern song. There are other
bells and whistles but the sound bites are inadequate. This product is best
for a beginning birder.

The Audubon VideoGuides to the Birds of North America are available in VHS or
laser disc format. The latter don't cost much more than the VHS versions and
avoids the searching problem Kit alluded to. Of course you need a laser disc
player.

And now for something entirely different:

Costa Rica Soundscapes. Sittelle 23303 np. imported by Allegro Records,
Portland, OR.
These are ambiance recordings at one biological station and four National
Parks. There are fifty minutes of bird calls plus howler monkeys & misc.
amphibians plus 32 tracks lasting 8.5 minutes of identified calls. This
recording (and others put out by Sittelle, a French organization) are of very
high quality. Very enjoyable and useful for someone who's been to Costa Rica
or is going there.

Mayan Forests. Sittelle. Recorded at Tikal and very authentic. Once again,
birds and mammals are identified.

Voices of the Cloud Forest. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. 1992. Similar,
with rain, insects, amphibians, mammals and a volcano recorded in the
Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. The entire sequence repeats with a spoken
monotone narration that identifies the specific critters. Rather redundant.

Even more different:

Multimedia AUDUBON's Birds. CD-ROM produced by Creative Multimedia, Portland
Oregon. np. Available for PC or Mac. The complete octavo edition of
Audubon's Birds, with the original accompanying text, with bird calls supplied
by Cornell L. of O. (Another version with Audubon's Mammals of NA is
available.) The reproductions are good; the calls an interesting extra. They
print in reversed black & white, at least on my HP 5MP printer; I might be
doing something wrong. This is a nice addition to a birding library and a
lot less expensive than a copy of the octavo edition!

-------Herb Curl








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