Birding by Ear: Eastern and Central North America

by Richard K Walton, Robert W Lawson, Roger Tory Peterson (Editor)

Birding by Ear is a unique and important new tool for birders. Now they can easily master one of the most useful and difficult field skills - the ability to recognize birds by their songs and calls. Birding By Ear points out exactly what to listen for to tell one bird from another. As the Peterson Field Guide groups birds by visual similarity, Birding by Ear groups them by acoustic similarity. Dick Walton and Bob Lawson have arranged eighty-five common species into seventeen intelligible learning groups, such as "whistlers, ... Read More

Birding by Ear is a unique and important new tool for birders. Now they can easily master one of the most useful and difficult field skills - the ability to recognize birds by their songs and calls. Birding By Ear points out exactly what to listen for to tell one bird from another. As the Peterson Field Guide groups birds by visual similarity, Birding by Ear groups them by acoustic similarity. Dick Walton and Bob Lawson have arranged eighty-five common species into seventeen intelligible learning groups, such as "whistlers," "chippers and trillers," "name-sayers," and "mimics." The entertaining and educational narrative does the same job as the arrows in the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds, pinpointing the precise differences between similar species. The songs themselves are recorded to the highest acoustic standards and are a delight to listen to. Birding by Ear can enable anyone to become a better birder. Use it in conjunction with the Peterson Field Guide to Bird Songs, which provides a thorough catalog of the songs and calls of the familiar birds of eastern and central North America (a Field Guide to Western Bird Songs is also available). Birding by Ear may well become as essential to you as your Field Guide and binoculars. Read Less