Bird Calls

If you haven't got one already get a CD/DVD or download an app.  The best is the Collins Bird Guide app, but that is only for Apple.  Then you can listen to the calls of likely birds over and over and basically learn them.

There are also plenty of websites with bird sounds on - this BBC one is a good start for common birds:

www.bbc.co.uk/.../birdsong.shtml

Even better idea!

The fabulous 'Tweet of the Day' series on BBC iPlayer - you'll learn all sorts of facts about birds as well as the sounds:

www.bbc.co.uk/.../b01s6xyk

For Android phones the RSPB British birds e guide has most calls/ songs and there is a freebie called UK birds sounds. Learning myself and have found both of these invaluable.

Thanks guys, I think that will be enough for me to be getting on with!

Hi James

All the above is sound advice although I wou go further and say the following may help.

1. Start simple. Your focus on garden birds is good. Learn a couple and learn them well. Robin for example, then blackbird etc. once you have these then you can discount them when you hear something different. It all builds from there.

2. Apps with calls are great but I find them better at confirming what you suspect rather than learning from scratch. Still helpful though and worth getting but you may find this option becomes more useful in time.

3. So prior to graduating to the above, get a cd or app that is all about teaching bird song. Search for Geoff sample for example and you will get a product that starts with the basics and tells you what you are listening to and why. If it is a cd, play it in the car on the way to work.

4. Look out for bird song guided walks like a dawn chorus walk in May. Being with an experienced tutor will bring you on leaps and bounds.

And keep practising because it will come together in time. And the world will be a different place when you can walk down a street and constantly be both aprreciating and identifying what it singing.

Hope that helps.

That is really helpful Matthew thanks. I think i might have Robin and possibly Wren recognised, simply because one lives on the walk to the station in the morning. Advice taken on board and will see how i get on!

Cheers Ladies and Gents.

Further to Matthews advice, I will offer the following:

1. As has been said, start with the birds in your garden, or somewhere where you already have a fairly good idea of the species present and know that there aren't too many. While it may be tempting to go straight to a bird filled reserve, the more species there are in an area, the more difficult it becomes to isolate songs/calls and find the bird that is making them.

2. When you hear a bird singing/calling try and take as much time as you need to find it and identify it by sight. Make sure that you are certain that it is the same bird though - preferably you should be able to see it while it is still calling.

3. Try and associate songs/calls with something that might help jog your memory as to what the species is. This can be a place, a habitat, a word or phrase, or even something like a cartoon character.

For example, you might associate Robin's song with your garden (or even a particular tree in your garden), Blackcaps with scrub in a local park, Pied Wagtails with Chiswick (if you know their calls you'll know why!), etc. Different things work for different people.

4. Once you feel that you know the songs and calls of your garden birds well, move on to somewhere with slightly more species (e.g..a local park). You should hopefully be able to identify some of the birds you hear, and can concentrate instead on finding the ones you don't know. Again, take the time to find the bird and identify it by sight. The longer it takes to find a bird,the more likely it is that the site, and hopefully the species, will stick in your mind. Next time you here the same  thing your first thought might be: "that's what I spent 20 minutes trying to pin down at the park...", hopefully followed by "...when I finally saw it,it was an..."!

Good luck!