iNaturalist update: they can do birdsong!!

I'm reading a book* on (the phyla of) all the world's animals, that opines that birds are the best way to get into natural history: they are interesting, beautiful, and everywhere, and there are a small enough number of species that it is possible to learn all the species of birds in an area.

I entered natural history through plants.  Identifying plants is much easier than identifying birds in at least one way: they don't run away when you approach them.  You can also take bits of them home for a better look without doing permanent harm.  

I have tried without success to learn to identify birds by their songs.  Such skill brings enormous advantage: no more sneaking around staring upward and trying to get enough of a glimpse of a bird hidden among the foliage to identify it (in my case, usually necessitating a photo and much time spent with a guide book).  My old friend is a serious birder, and identifies birds by their songs as she walks, usually without need for even  a glance.  Unfortunately, she lives at the other end of the country.  So I've listened to Audubon teaching CDs of birdsongs.  I've listened to Cornell Lab of Ornithology recordings of birds I already know live in the neighborhood.  I've listened to birds and recorded birds and then tried to match them with Roger Tory Peterson's "sonograms."  But somehow I just can't make the learning stick.  Over and over I have painstakingly identified a bird I heard, only to find it is a familiar species with a song I should know immediately.  --all despite having a pretty good ear for music, and long experience in singing, myself.

So I was hopeful when I discovered that iNaturalist has a feature that allows uploading sound files.  Could I upload birdsong?  Would birders bother listening to them?  (It takes much, much longer to listen to a 30 second recording than to glance at a photo.)  A few days ago I found a few recordings from last year in my phone, uploaded them to SoundCloud as required, and created "observations."  Then I went away, expecting to wait days or weeks for a response.

Instead it took less than an hour!  Two different birders had listened to my recordings and confidently ventured IDs for half of them, somewhat less confidently for the rest.  And they also pointed out the likely identities of others birds audible in the background!  I will be adding song sparrows, yellow warblers and killdeer to the short list of birds I know in the neighborhood.

My years of being handicapped when it comes to birds are coming to an end!  I look forward to walking the dogs with phone in hand, and to recording the riotous chorus of birds next spring, and maybe even to going out early to catch the dawn chorus.

Song sparrow.

Yellow warbler.

Killdeer.

*Ten Million Aliens by Simon Barnes  I came across it in a bookstore on Martha's Vineyard two years ago and saved my pennies 'til I could afford the ebook version.

Bird Season

 Spotted a pair of pair of downy woodpeckers flitting about in the front yard.  This is the male.

My first love, trees, are mostly still pretty sleepy; meanwhile, the birds are busier all the time--mating season has begun.  Birds are perhaps the easiest group of large animals* to watch, or at least the most obvious, and they're virtually everywhere.  And for the next month or two--birds will be at their most visible: trees will not begin leafing-out until almost May.  

Even though I am no kind of birder, I will be observing and learning as much as I can over the coming weeks.  I have used several websites to identify and learn about birds, but the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is the premier site--especially for learning bird songs.  Songs are valuable because we often hear birds that we can't see.  A skillful birder I know can identify many birds with her eyes closed.  

Looking through the Cornell site a day or so ago, I came upon a great way to learn to identify birds by their songs.  If you want to go out better prepared, here is a great place to start. Within something called the Bird Academy, I found Bird Song Hero.  This is a couple of interactive lesson/quizzes that teaches you to "see" birdsong.  And after you've finished it, you get a free download of backyard bird songs that you can study and keep for reference.  (There's also a nifty-looking online lecture course you can take, but it costs money.)

Other sites are easy to find in a search.


*Okay, maybe they're medium-sized animals.  But on the grand scale of things, most animals are the size of insects.  (Come to think of it, most animals ARE insects!)  Of course, we are bigger than the average bird, but you might not realize that we aren't that far from the top of the animal size range.  Blue whales are about 2000 times heavier than a human, a human is about 1000 times heavier than a robin, which is in turn about 3700 times heavier than a lady bug.