Out of the 90 species of birds on my copy of Birding by Ear, about 85 are
species that could be reasonably expected in Cascadia. There are many problems
with Birding by Ear, however. The tracks are sorted by (in my opinion) the
subjective things-that-sound-similar method for some species (ie. song singers,
name sayers, whistlers) and by family group for others (owls, hawks, wood warblers).
But Mourning Dove is throws in with the owls. Orange-crowned Warbler is not
with the wood warblers, it's with the trillers. It may be a good way to start
learning a systematized way of remembering calls, but it is not a particularly
good resources for figuring out what you heard in the field or preparing for
a trip to an unfamiliar part of our region.

The Western Birds records (I have the tapes and the record, but not the CD
just so you know what a codger I am) has just about all the calls in an order
that
follows the book. From this, I can make my own tapes of all the species I
need to focus on at any particular time and I have a reasonably complete resource
of calls that I can listen to if I come across something in the field that I don't
recognize.

Of course (again, just my opinion) you can't learn bird calls and songs from
a recording. The only good way to do this is to get out into the field, either
with a patient mentor, or by the brute force method of tracking down everything
you hear 'til you see it. There is too much information on either of these tapes
for learning in a way that's going to stick.


Jim McCoy wrote:
>
> I'm finally getting around to buying a CD of western bird songs, and can't
> decide between the two Peterson CD collections: Western Bird Songs (or
> something like that) and Birding by Ear, western edition. The former
> claimed to have an absurd 522 species on just two CDs (or does the 522
> include the eastern edition?). The latter offers what seems to me to be an
> absurdly low 90 species on three CDs.
>
> It seems obvious that the Bird Songs CD is far more comprehensive, and the
> Birding by Ear far more thorough. Does anybody out there have opinions on
> either, or ideally both? Has anyone been frustrated by the low species
> count on the Birding by Ear? By the fewer vocalizations on the Bird Songs?
>
> I have the Stokes eastern bird CD collection. Is it possible that the
> Birding by Ear CD features only western-only birds, in which case it might
> be an ideal companion to the Stokes? If it's something like the 90 most
> common songbirds, 65 or 70 of which are on the Stokes, it might be less than
> an ideal solution...
>
> Jim McCoy
> jfmccoy at earthlink.net
> Redmond, WA

--
Mike Patterson "Change comes one funeral at a time"
Astoria, OR Doc Hatfield-in response to the question: Why
mpatters at orednet.org don't more cattlemen choose to use a proven
method of range management that is more
economically AND environmentally sound.

http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html