For the Birds column: It pays to know the songs well

Here’s my For the Birds column from last week. For the Birds runs Thursdays in The Hour (Norwalk, Ct.) and Mondays in The Sentinel (Keene, N.H.).

 

Just like birds don’t always look like field guides say they look, birds don’t always sound like field guides say they sound like.
Unless it’s a very comprehensive field guide — such as a Sibley or Crossley — it won’t show all of the various plumages you might see in a bird. Try finding the eclipse plumage of a male Wood Duck in a typical field guide. Birding is rarely cut-and-dry, which is one of the great things about the hobby.
This is certainly true of bird sounds as well. Notice I didn’t write “bird songs” as birds make a variety of sounds, such as songs, calls and alarm notes.
The Gray Catbird is a good example of this. I was walking through Selleck’s Dunlap Woods the other day when I heard a variety of bird sounds all around me. I heard about 10 unique sounds and at least three of them were coming from different catbirds.
Gray Catbirds, of course, are so named because of their cat-like calls. It is a very appropriate name for that bird as they indeed sound just like a cat. Sometimes you question whether a cat is lurking in the thick brush, or a Gray Catbird.
But catbirds also have a warbling, squeaky song. And, as I discovered the other day as I stood there and absorbed the bird sounds, they have another sound. It was somewhere between its call and song. I knew, however, it was a catbird because of the overall feeling of the sound. Kind of like how an American robin makes several different sounds, but they are all “robin-like.”
Several of my recent guests on BirdCallsRadio have talked about a different type of birdwatching, one in which birders consider all the aspects of the bird — including size, shape and habits — in order to make an identification. Sometimes called the “Whole Bird and More” approach, birders do not merely rely on the color and general appearance of the bird. Listen to the archives of the Derek Lovitz, Kevin Karlson, and Richard Crossley archives at www.BirdCallsRadio. com for more information about this approach.
The same principles may be applied to identifying birds by sound as well. Take the aforementioned robin for example. We all know its “cheerup, cheerily, cheerily” song. By knowing the overall feeling and sound of that song, you can identify the robin’s other sounds — such as their “tut, tut, tut” calls — when you hear them. Robins have other songs and calls as well, which can be traced back to the robin using the same principles.
That said, I’m certainly not an expert at identifying birds by sounds. The warblers that are filling our treetops certainly pose a fun challenge for those who like to “bird by ear.” But when you get to know a certain bird sound well enough, it can carry over into that bird’s other sounds. If you hear the Black-capped Chickadee’s “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” call enough, you also know it’s a chickadee when it sings its “fee bee” song. (Actually I like to think of that song as “ha ha” and imagine the chickadee laughing.)
So, just like the “whole bird” approach may be applied to looking at birds, it may also be applied to listening to birds. Give it a shot.

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Click here for the Derek Lovitz archive, during which he describes the Whole Bird and More approach.