Mark and other birding-by-ear beginners,

Those CDs will eventually come in very handy, but learning bird songs from
one of the bird song compilation CDs is like trying to learn a language by
reading a dictionary.

You need a bird song "language primer." The one I learned from is the
Peterson's "Birding by Ear" (western region) tape (now on CD or DVD, I'm
sure), by Richard Walton and Robert Lawson. It groups similar sounding
songs of common western birds and gives you helpful ways to recognize them.
(I will never be able to listen to a Ruby-crowned Kinglet without hearing
Walton's phrase "the beautiful song of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet.")

It'll give you a huge jump-start on learning songs, then you can pass it on
to some other beginning birder and move to the CD compilations.

For Seattle area birds in particular, it will cover almost everything you'll
hear commonly in the city and most of the surrounding area, except you'll
need to listen to local recordings of Song Sparrows and Bewick's Wrens,
which have local "accents."

Kelly Cassidy
Pullman

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
> [mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf
> Of Regan Wensnahan
> Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 5:11 PM
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Subject: [Tweeters] Which songs to learn first?
>
> Hi All,
>
> As a fairly new bird watcher, I have decided that it is time
> for me to take time to learn some bird songs. The problem of
> course is which ones?
>
> I have the Stokes CDs and took the time to make a CD of the
> subset of "common" Seattle birds. This trimmed the list from
> ~500 to ~90. This list is still too long to seem like a good
> starting point. I'd like to trim things to perhaps 20-30 that
> I would try to memorize and perhaps another 30 that I would
> listen to occasionally for familiarity. It seems like the
> place to start is with common birds that sing regularly, i.e.
> those birds I am likely to hear. It also seems to make sense
> to focus on birds that I amlikely to hear but not see or be
> able to identify easily otherwise.
>
> So, I was hoping that you folks could give me some recommendations.
> Where do I start?
>
> Thanks, Mark
>
> Mark Wensnahan
> Ballard/Seattle
> reganw at rockislandDOTcom
>
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