New Birding Resource - The Singing Life of Birds (1 Viewer)

Donald Kroodsma, the country's leading expert on avian vocal behavior, is the author of a new book, "THE SINGING LIFE OF BIRDS: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong" (Houghton Mifflin, April 2005).

Kroodsma puts readers inside the mind of a research scientist to better understand how, when, why, and where birds sing. He weaves together scientific facts and personal stories, taking readers "behind the music" of the birds.

THE SINGING LIFE OF BIRDS is available wherever books are sold. Don Kroodsma was recently interviewed on "Fresh Air with Terry Gross." To hear the interview, visit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4565590

bwit said:

Donald Kroodsma, the country's leading expert on avian vocal behavior

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"The country"?!?

Bwit, welcome to Birdforum,//

The US's leading expert! I forgot to specify for our international birders....sorry!

pigsonthewing said:

"The country"?!?

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I'll second your "thumbs up" for this book. I have read about half of it and am definitelt impressed. It is like following a detective of birds as he travels around the globe (mostly US though) searching for answers to questions about why birds sing the way they do. For instance - why do some birds have a huge variety of songs, while other species sing the same song over and over and over......? So far, my reading has led me on a fascinating journey leading me to appreciate the birds I hear all the more!

The book also introduced me to sonagrams of bird songs and with the CD included in the back cover of the book, you can listen to the song and read the sonagram in the book at the same time. While this might sound overly technical and intimidating at first, after a few tries it actually becomes fairly easy to do. The sonagram makes you aware of portions of the song that are easy to miss when doing normal casual listening. Now, when I hear the bird in the field, I hear and better appreciate the subtilties of the song. This has now got me thinking that it would be nice to have a bird song CD like Peterson's or Stokes with an accompanying book of sonagrams for the calls. It could also be done on a DVD.

For "icing on the cake" the CD has some songs (such as the wood thrush) at 1/2 or 1/4 speed which reveals the amazing variety of sounds made by the bird to create the song. I jumped ahead and read some of the end of the book - Kroodsma warns the reader that they may eventually get addicted to songs and start recording their own birdsongs to answer their own questions such as: "Is this the same robin that lived in my yard last year?" Obtaining the answer is possible by obtaining recordings, downloading them to computers and using simple software to produce the sonagrams for analysis.

If you are willing to push the birding portion of your brain in a new and different direction - I'd definitely recommend this book!

Couldn't agree with you more, Andy1! I just bought this book a few days ago while on a trip and have barely cracked it, but already it's provided information that has made me appreciate even more what I'm hearing in the field. I'm almost tempted to trade in one of my cameras for a parabolic mike!

While looking at pages with sonograms printed on them can seem a little intimidating, as Andy1 says, it actually will help birders learn to make field notes as to what a bird sounds like -- sort of like birdie shorthand -- rather than trying to use words to describe bird sounds ("quick three beers," e.g. ). It's not the words but the inflection that provides the key to the ID, such as using an upward curving line for the word "three" and a downward curving line for the word "beers," something you can't infer from just seeing the printed words in the example above for Olive-sided Flycatcher's characteristic song.

Even if the average birder doesn't want to bother to learn birdsongs and calls, it's a very enjoyable read from the "adventure" aspect alone. Highly recommended.

bwit said:

The US's leading expert! I forgot to specify for our international birders....sorry!

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If potw had read anything else in your post he should have realised which country by;- your location, spelling, the publishers of the book ... but maybe he was just trying to help others ?

Andy.

I'm sure potw was being helpful! Next time I shall be more specific

bwit

Andrew Rowlands said:

If potw had read anything else in your post he should have realised which country by;- your location, spelling, the publishers of the book ... but maybe he was just trying to help others ?

Andy.

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An ancient thread, I know, which I'm resurrecting here because of the excellence of Kroodsma's book. which I've just finished reading. A first-rate piece of work, fun to read & packed with interesting information. Highly recommended.

I just finished reading it too, and loaned it to my non-scientist mother. I think she'll enjoy his enthusiasm while she skips the sonograms. Kroodsma's enthusiasm was so contagious I was thinking about chucking in my career and enrolling in a graduate program to study bird song.