Sounds okay
In this new series, Rob Hume will explore birding by sound, giving advice on how to improve your listening skills and sound ID knowledge.
MANY books will tell you that more birds are heard than seen, and most that you see will be heard first. So how do you know what you are listening to? There is no substitute for following up the sound and seeing the bird as it calls, but there are plenty of ways to listen to bird sounds on the internet.
YouTube ( www.youtube.com) is full of videos and recordings, while Xeno-canto ( www.xeno
canto.org) has an astonishing range of recordings complete with date and place. There are apps available to identify birdsongs and calls. Yet that doesn’t quite do it if you hear an insignificant little peep or tchip or sup.
Our ears and brains (quite amazingly, if you think of a little vibrating drum coping with so many sounds all at once) have a phenomenal ability to distinguish between the tiniest differences in pitch and quality of sound. Consider, for example, the metallic twik of a
Yellowhammer, the low note of a Reed Bunting, the light chatter of a Common Linnet, firmer chatter of a Greenfinch, hard stutter of a Lesser Redpoll; the different high, thin notes of a Goldcrest and a Long-tailed Tit. These vocalisations can all be found on Xeno-canto.
But learning them all is a matter of experience and of putting the sound to the bird. Then there are the vagaries of ambient conditions: the difference between a call in a bush versus open space, in wind or calm; do sounds even sound a bit different in the quiet of the night?
Transcribing sounds (writing down something like tseep, chooop or schwaaaaart) is so personal that the results may mean nothing to other people, but it is worth trying it anyway, for your own sake. Draw a line over the word to show ups and downs in pitch. Anything that helps you remember next time. ■