Dear Amy and Tweeters,
?
The go-to field guide in the nineteen-sixties, seventies, and into the early eighties, was the Golden Guide. The authors, Robbins, Bruun, and Zim, chose to include sonograms for many of the species, certainly most of those that sing or vocalize frequently. These tiny graphs showed the frequency ranges on the y-axis, with time on the x-axis. The results were very useful for those learning to bird by ear.?Pure, sweet whistles showed up as thin lines, whereas more raucous sounds of crows and such looked like blotches, since they?cover a broad range of frequencies. The dips and climbs of the graph gave the bird student a good idea of falling and rising pitches.
?
The Golden Guide?was a ground-breaking field-guide, with its color range maps, species accounts on the same page as the plates, and compact format. I never could figure why?so few subsequent?field guides have included sonograms. In fact, I can't think of any other field guide that has them.
?
Yours truly,
?
Gary Bletsch


Gary Bletsch

Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA

garybletsch at yahoo.com

"Nun," sagte ich, "wenn ich ein Taugenichts bin, so ist's gut, so will ich in die Welt gehen, und mein Glueck machen." Und eigentlich war mir das recht lieb, denn es war mir kurz vorher selber eingefallen, auf Reisen zu gehen, da ich die Goldammer, welche im Herbst und Winter immer betruebt an unserm Fenster sang: "Bauer, miet' mich, Bauer, miet' mich!" nun in der schoenen Fruehlingszeit wieder ganz stolz und lustig vom Baume rufen hoerte: "Bauer, behalt' deinen Dienst!"


>________________________________
> From: Amy Hill <60stops2home at kalama.com>
>To: Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
>Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:20 AM
>Subject: [Tweeters] Bird Sound frequency in Hertz
>
>
>I'm always on the lookout for puzzles, and here's one I would love to
solve. How can I found out?the frequency ranges of bird
sounds??
>
>Why would I want to know this? If I knew the
frequency of a specific bird's song/call, I believe that information
combined with other tools like mnemonics would help me identify more
accurately what species I think I'm hearing deep in the grass, woods or
high over my head in overcast skies.
>
>Not only that, with more
than a half-century of use on my ears, I want to know what I could be
missing.
>
>
>Amy Hill
>Kalama, Washington
>628 ft
up in Cowlitz County
>60stops2home at kalama dot com
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>
>
>