View from the Shed by Shaun Finnie - BIRD LISTENING

BIRD LISTENING

Like many of you, I'm a birdwatcher. I'm not a particularly good one – there's no way I'd stake my reputation on being able to tell the difference between a Marsh Tit and a Willow Tit for example – but when you're as old as I am you inevitably pick up a few things along the way. For instance I can tell the difference between a Redwing and a Fieldfare. They're easy to distinguish: one has red armpits and the other wears a grey balaclava. But what about the more common British thrushes, the Song and Mistle? They too are fairly easy to identify but the differences between them are more comparative. One's a bit bigger, one stands more upright, one has more precise markings on its chest than the other etc. But what if you don't get a good view? What if it's skulking away in the back of a bush? Maybe you just aren't confident with your identification skills? Fortunately there's a sure-fire way to tell the difference between the two, and that's by their songs. As well as being a birdwatcher, it helps if you're also a birdlistener.

The Song Thrush is a loud bird, with a song full of strongly defined, repeated phrases. By contrast the Mistle Thrush sings in a more hesitant and mournful way. But it also makes another sound. If you hear a loud rattling call like the sound of a big wooden rattle once heard on football terraces, then you've undoubtedly got yourself a Mistle Thrush. So they may look similar, but there's a huge difference sonically.

And going back to the Marsh vs Willow Tit quandary from earlier, I can never be certain as to which one I am looking at, ever. I usually just read up on which is most likely to be seen in my present location. As the two are rarely seen in the same place, then that's a good enough guide for me. But their songs are very distinct. Marsh Tits always start with a little delicate sneeze sound. “a-chooo”. They may go on to make some other calls but it's the sneeze that'll get you. The call of the Willow Tit is very different, a “ke-chee-chee” sound, delivered as if by a parakeet with adenoid issues.

A great way to introduce yourself to bird sounds is the BBC's Tweet of the Day podcast. There's a huge archive online (743 episodes at the time of writing) and usually each one is devoted to a single species. They're only a few minutes long but that's enough to give you a clue as to what to listen out for in the field. Choose a few that you know you can tell by sight and then learn to associate the noise with the bird.

Or you could splash out on an excellent book by Simon Barnes, 'Birdwatching with your Eyes Closed'. He attempts to describe bird sounds in a way that makes them easy to remember. He's a very descriptive and clever writer so look into it. It might work for you. Keep in mind though that any book about birdsong has to resort to phonetics at some point. Describing sounds using made-up words. It's almost impossible to recreate the intricate double output of a songbird's syrinx via the restrictions of the written word though. Look at five different books trying to describe the sound of a particular species and you'll more than likely get five different transcriptions. One man's “tsee-tsee-tsee” is another man's “chi-chi-chi”. And they're both right. Although I'm still not convinced that Yellowhammers are really partial to “a little bit of bread and no cheese”.

It's not so much what birds you learn to recognise by sound, as which birds you eliminate. Let's imagine I see a little brown jobbie, a warbler of some kind flitting around in the reeds or undergrowth. They're all notoriously similar looking and difficult to see clearly, what with being fast, twitchy and living in vegetation. I usually can't say for certain what bird it is unless I get a really clear sighting of it, and then I'm not too hot on supercilium stripes and the like. Fortunately I've learned the songs of some of them. If the sound isn't one of those that I know, then that narrows the options down quite some way. There are only so many little brown jobbies that it could be. Any trick that narrows down the possibilities has to be a good thing, right?

I was in the Old Moor reedbeds the other day and I had seen nothing. No birds that is. I'd seen plenty of birders like myself in search of our star species who live in that area. I closed my eyes for a moment and listened. At first I could hear nothing but the traffic rumbling by on the A6195 bypass but, after a little while, I managed to mentally block that out. And eventually I heard the sound that I'd been waiting for. A single note metallic 'ping', repeated and very close by. The unmistakeable sound of a BEARDED TIT.

Eventually I spotted a small brown movement in the reeds, almost buried a way back. I'd never have seen it without my binoculars or without recognising the sound that gave me the initial clue as to its whereabouts. It was the most fleeting of glimpses and I never got a full sighting of the entire bird, but it was undoubtedly a Beardy.

I have an app on my phone that's very useful in these cases. It's called BirdNET and its purpose is to identify birds by the sounds they make. It's easy to use and quite accurate, especially if the birdsong is close by so you can get a good recording of it. All you do is open the app, let it hear your bird for a few seconds and then press the 'Analyze' button. It immediately comes back and reports what it thinks you've heard.

I first used it last summer and right from the start it worked perfectly. I was on the moors when I heard a short, scratchy song that I didn't recognise. I'd seen a Wheatear just beforehand so I guessed (correctly as it turned out) that it might be him. I fired up BirdNET and pointed my phone in the bird's direction.

“What're you doing?” asked my wife, watching me wave my phone about. The bird sang on.

I motioned for her to be quiet and continued listening. “Are you recording?” she asked? The bird sang on.

“Shhh!” I pointed to the phone and made faces that I hoped she'd understand as meaning Be Quiet. She didn't. Neither did the bird.

“Ooh is that the new app? What have you heard?” The bird sang on.

I'd had enough by now. I went purple in my exasperation and uttered something loud and unpleasant before stabbing 'Analyze' in frustration.

Surprisingly BirdNET had heard enough have a go at identifying the species. After a few seconds it came back with its results..... "HUMAN". Out of the three of us – me, my wife and the Wheatear – that's what it had identified most easily. I couldn't disagree.

To see and hear some of the following birds (as well as some humans) come along to Old Moor. And keep your ears open.