The Golden Guide was always one of my favorite bird books for the sonograms
alone, not to mention the sensible layout of the species descriptions and
maps, as Gary describes below.



-jody



Jody Breckenridge

North of Monroe, rural sno county









From: Gary Bletsch [mailto:garybletsch at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:27 AM
To: Amy Hill
Cc: tweeters tweeters
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Bird Sound frequency in Hertz



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


_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters