On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, 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 own both. The Birding by Ear was great for me as I tried to learn how
to differentiate between species that sounded the same (the warblers for
instance) as these are set up for comparison. The Western CDs do have 522
songs, but that is songs--there are no call notes, for instance, which is
somewhat frustrating. The songs are given in short snippets generally.
The advantage of this disk is the presence of owl and rail calls that you
don't get on the Birding by Ear.
RK
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray Korpi "The more you complain, the longer God
Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA lets you live."
rkorpi at csci.clark.edu --heard on _Prairie_Home_Companion_,
President, Oregon Field 11-28-98
Ornithologists
**Inquiries on Oregon birds
always welcome**