Bird Watching For Beginners – Part One
Bird Watching For Beginners – Part Two
Bird Watching For Beginners – Part Three.
BIRD WATCHING WITH YOUR EARS
A bird’s song can be beautiful music or a screeching annoyance. Its tune can help you identify what kind of bird it is and where to look for it in your field guide. All you need is to tune in to their songs. Each species makes sounds that are unique, and you can identify the birds by those sounds just as easily as you can by their shape or color.
Indeed, there are advantages to birding by ear. You can do it in the dark (a useful skill for identifying owls when you’re camping). The barred owl, for example, sounds completely different from any other sound you hear at night. A bird hidden in dense summer foliage will often sing out its identity for all who have ears to hear. And although you can see with your eyes only in the direction you happen to be facing, you can hear in all directions at once, so you can identify a bird by its song even when it’s behind your back.
We humans live in a different sensory world from most creatures of earth. Your dog, for example experiences the world mainly through his nose, while our sense of smell is puny by comparison. It’s difficult even to imagine the sensory impressions taken in by bats or beetles, frogs or fish.
On the other hand, birds’ strongest senses are sight and hearing, and they have evolved ways to communicate and to recognize their own species by using signals based on those two senses. Because we are also creatures of sight and sound, we can tap right into all the fascinating distinctions of color and shape that birds embody, and just as naturally we can appreciate the sounds that are so important in their lives.
As you begin to recognize bird songs, you will bring yourself into a whole new dimension of bird watching. You will probably find yourself mesmerized by the sing-song voice of the bird outside your window and recognize birds you didn’t know you had around you!
Get a field guide to bird songs. Just as you need a book with pictures to learn what birds look like, you need recordings to learn what they sing like. Fortunately, there are several excellent tapes and CDs of bird songs available now. You can also find some excellent resources online for bird songs. Familiarize yourself with these songs and open yourself to a whole new world of bird watching!
When you hear a bird’s song, describe it to yourself in words. You might notice that the white-breasted nuthatch has a nasal sound to his “Yenk, yenk, yenk” song, and that each note of the northern cardinal’s song is a slippery, downward slurp, or that the blue jay’s call is sometimes loud and harsh, as if the bird were screaming “Thief!” Making mental note of such characteristics helps you recognize the bird when you hear it again.
Associate a phrase of English with the song, such as “Peter, Peter, Peter” for the tufted titmouse. The words will remind you of the rhythm, speed, or pitch of the song. It’s best when you can fit your own words to a bird’s song, but feel free to use memorable phrases others come up with. The ovenbird is traditionally reputed to sing out “teacher, Teacher, TEACHER,” and it’s hard to improve on “Quick, three beers!” for the olive-sided flycatcher’s call. Once you ascribe words to a bird’s song, the melody stays with you forever. Chicago may no longer means just a city in Illinois, it might be the song of that unique bird you found last week.
After you’ve become familiar with a few songs, make a point of listening early in the morning. During the hour before sunrise, many birds sing. The chorus is lovely to listen to as a whole, but it is also a pleasure to single out and recognize the individual voices in the choir. Some birds sing throughout the day, but you’ll hear 100 times as much bird song first thing in the morning as at noon. At any season, you can see more birds with your ears than you can with your eyes.
So why not give it a go tomorrow morning? Sleep with a window open, so that you’ll hear the birds singing when you first wake up. If you don’t know what they are, try to separate out one song from the rest. Even though the singer may remain a mystery to you for a while, it will serve as your inspiration to learn to see with your ears.
You don’t necessarily have to travel to find birds. You can attract many species of birds to your home – right in your own backyard. What could be better than sitting on your porch and pursuing bird watching in the comfort of your own home?
CONCLUSION
Birding is not the easiest sport in the world to learn, but it is definitely one of the most rewarding. To offset those first outings when you flipped through your field guide with frustration, there will be many years’ worth of pleasant and intriguing field trips. You see birders experience something new every time they go out. Even if they don’t see a new species for the first time, they might see a new behavior, hear a new vocalization, or just explore a new and wild corner of Florida. They might even come across something startling, like a rare European bird that somehow strayed far from home.
The constant variety and challenge of birding are two important attractions, but so too is the camaraderie. About 42 million people in the United States are casual bird watchers, feeding and observing birds around their homes. A much smaller number, around 17 million, take trips for the primary purpose of watching birds. Still, that’s a lot of people poking their heads into bushes and craning their necks toward the sky. Birding is always filled with a world of new people and new experiences. Beginning birding will have its moments of frustration, but if you give it a good try and learn the basics, in no time you will be addicted!
Birding is a quest. You set out to see birds – but the prize you come back with can only be described as happiness. Learning to bird is like getting a lifetime ticket to the theater of nature. The important thing to bear in mind if you are a beginner is, the more time you spend looking at the birds, the more you will understand them and come to enjoy them. Don’t be put off by the usual jibes from friends or colleagues (yes there will still be some people who cannot understand why you are fascinated by birds), just do it and amaze yourself and everyone around you!
Happy birding to all!! 
Tags:
Bird Watching,
nature
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