Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Hearing Birds
Date: Mar 23 05:14:45 2011
From: Pterodroma at aol.com - Pterodroma at aol.com


I used to think and be thankful my hearing for a 63-yo is/was pretty good.
At least I seemed to be able to hear things that many others didn't seem
to either hear or maybe just not notice. Within the past two or three
years, I've begun to sense or suspect that perhaps my hearing isn't quite what
it used to be. It's invariably the really thin high pitched ones. Around
here, it's namely the ringing songs of the Golden-crowned Kinglet and Brown
Creeper which I don't think I've actually heard at all for several years.
Even when I see them, I still don't hear the familiar song. Even the
Pacific-slope Flycatcher seems to be fading, and probably a few others. I
thought they were just disappearing from my backyard greenbelt ravine due to
ever expanding up-slope development when I first began to realize that I
wasn't detecting them at all any more. During my walks in the Lake Hills
Greenbelt (Bellevue) last Spring, I did hear one in one spot but mentally noted
how faint and barely detectable at all the song was to my ear. And this
repeated each time I passed through that spot where the Pacific-slope lived.
Even upon actually chasing it down for a visual confirmation, the species
still sounded much fainter than I ever could remember. Even in my
backyard greenbelt, I briefly heard one on a few occasions last
late-Spring/early-summer, but like at Lake Hills, also faint and barely detectable at all.

Back when I first started birding in my teens in Missouri and later on the
East Coast, I always marveled at the super high thin ringing songs of the
Blackburnian Warbler and always thought how difficult that song might be to
hear by some, and set that as my 'benchmark' species to gauge my own
potential for hearing loss. Well, it's been many many years since I've heard
one or even been anywhere where I might, but suspect that one's song is gone
for good now. No Blackburnian's around here of course, but locally, I'm
guessing Townsend's, Hermit, and Black-throated Gray may be next in peril if
not there already. And who knows what sort of 'vibrant' songs all those
Anna's Hummingbirds might be singing, if any. All I ever hear are the
incessant 'tsk', 'tsk' chip notes all day long.

Thanks David for your interesting posting about hearing aids and the state
of the art to which they have evolved. Being able to adjust them for
certain situations, including specifically birds, and filtering out others
sounds appealing. Now, if they can at least filter out the airplane traffic
overhead, especially those single engine prop planes that always seem to pass
over at the worst time, and the Tuesday morning garbage truck brigade,
I'll be all set.

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA