What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[Lat-Literal]

Well....Blackbird - you can watch them singing and learn them that way, but....rich contralto, tailing off into unmusical ending
Song thrush - lots of different phrases, but everything repeated 2-3 times
Robin - inconclusive thread of melody
Chaffinch - chirrup-chirrup-chirrup-chirrup-sowayyyooo (NB chaffinches have local accents)
Wren - trill ending in metallic buzz......

That sort of thing - there are plenty more

I like the BTO CD "Learning Bird Songs and Calls" but there are several others - BBC, British Library....CDs useful for checking something you've heard, rather than trying to learn them in advance.

That's extraordinary - thank you.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I have been training my mind to listen to birdsong when I wake up and on any early morning walk. This is calming but it also feels a bit strange and slightly ill. Not sure where that connotation arose and it is nonsensical.

Not cessinarily, Lats - if you listened to or just heard birdsong outside when you were ill in bed as a child (so ill that you couldn't sit up and read/listen to Music/play - and had had so much sleep that you couldn't nod off again) the association seems quite logical.

[Vox Humana]

The Chaffinch's song has been likened to a bowler running up and bowling. I rather like that analogy.
The Great Tit's typical song has been equated to a repeated "teacher, teacher, teacher" and it does sound rather like that.
Ravens croak rather than "caw" like Rooks and Carrion Crows, while Jackdaws call "Jack" (hence the name).

I think the best way to learn bird song is to take time out "in the field" to track down the sounds you hear to the birds making them. It takes time, but eventually the connections you make begin to stick in the mind.

[Lat-Literal]

Not cessinarily, Lats - if you listened to or just heard birdsong outside when you were ill in bed as a child (so ill that you couldn't sit up and read/listen to Music/play - and had had so much sleep that you couldn't nod off again) the association seems quite logical.

Yes perhaps - I can think of a couple of those moments - but it is also something to do with social requirements to acknowledge people first. At pre school age, I was in the garden all the time because I was thrown there lovingly for the good of my spiritual - rather than religious or physical - health. It was on a very long and steep upward hill and there are umpteen photos of me beside the roses, in the snow, by the bonfire at the top and at the gate that led into the woods. Natural sounds were a part of it - echoes across the valley along with the sound of planes and gliders. But not long afterwards with the onset of school, any walking along streets paying attention to the environment rather than to people naturally stopped. Presumably it felt weird to be around other people in that sort of dream. It briefly returns in the mid teens in an all-sensory overload and that has been depicted in some music after which much becomes very humanly "at the desk" routine. Of course, it is different in settings designed for that sort of thing. I could think of Bill Oddie or exotically Attenborough. Not quite the same but there were also those I knew who monitored aircraft noise and provided lectures to we the folk who were never allowed to leave the office. And then on just one day in my employment I was required to be at Rutland Water. It felt so normal to be transported across fields on a basic motorised cart to those watching ospreys it was a blessed relief. I spent the day believing I was producing a programme on countryside matters. Now I come to think of it, I have no idea why I was there.

[jayne lee wilson]

Go to the RSPB bird guide, and click on the individual bird's names..... there's usually audio of the birdsong or calls....

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/c/

...like this Chaffinch -

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/c/chaffinch/index.aspx

..or the Raven, one of my favourites, which I see regularly here now, where once I had to visit the Welsh Hills to watch their acrobatic joy....

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/r/raven/index.aspx

My Ravens go even lower than this one though, closer to the classic VRONK!

Like the Ravens, this one carries for miles across the summer skies.... (and one individual often terrorises the pigeons on the lawn, all year round..)

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/b/buzzard/index.aspx

[Lat-Literal]

Go to the RSPB bird guide, and click on the individual bird's names..... there's usually audio of the birdsong or calls....

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/c/

...like this Chaffinch -

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/c/chaffinch/index.aspx

..or the Raven, one of my favourites, which I see regularly here now, where once I had to visit the Welsh Hills to watch their acrobatic joy....

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/r/raven/index.aspx

My Ravens go even lower than this one though, closer to the classic VRONK!

Like the Ravens, this one carries for miles across the summer skies.... (and one individual often terrorises the pigeons on the lawn, all year round..)
http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wil...ard/index.aspx

The Chaffinch's song has been likened to a bowler running up and bowling. I rather like that analogy.
The Great Tit's typical song has been equated to a repeated "teacher, teacher, teacher" and it does sound rather like that.
Ravens croak rather than "caw" like Rooks and Carrion Crows, while Jackdaws call "Jack" (hence the name).

I think the best way to learn bird song is to take time out "in the field" to track down the sounds you hear to the birds making them. It takes time, but eventually the connections you make begin to stick in the mind.

This is all excellent and thank you to both of you. It will be my spring pad. Some might be surprised by my comments given attention to landscapes and seascapes and animals crossing the pavement but those are different somehow. The effort has to be made not to notice them rather than to notice them. I would associate them more with people too.

[Richard Tarleton]

I think the best way to learn bird song is to take time out "in the field" to track down the sounds you hear to the birds making them. It takes time, but eventually the connections you make begin to stick in the mind.

- get our all-year residents sorted before the leaves come on the trees (while you can still see the birds) and before the migrants arrive and confuse things!

I'll be leading a reedbed dawn chorus walk at the end of April, by which time I'm hoping most of the summer visitors will be here. Reedbeds are a challenge, because all the songsters are small, brown and hard to see.

[ardcarp]

Though probably frowned on by purists, this is rather a good first step:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Birdsong-British-Irish-amazing-sounds/dp/1849491348

It's a 'book' with an integrated sound system. Just press a button and you get the song (well, a song) of the bird you're looking at.

As one of my chief relaxations involves sitting on boats up muddy creeks, my own favourite and most evocative cries are those of the curlew and the oyster catcher, usually emitted whilst in flight. Both quite unmistakable. Herons, OTOH, make a most disagreeable noise...and rather spoil the ambience. Luckily they do it mainly while nesting/squabbling among themselves. A solitary one merely fishing at the water's edge is usually quiet.

[Vox Humana]

Herons, OTOH, make a most disagreeable noise...and rather spoil the ambience.

They're not called "Frank" without reason! :)

[Serial_Apologist]

The starlings down at Sainsbury's car park frequently emit wolf whistles, and are only frightened away by sounds of fretting birds relayed over the store's external tannoy. The blokish side of S London culture indeed dies hard...

[Lat-Literal]

Though probably frowned on by purists, this is rather a good first step:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Birdsong-British-Irish-amazing-sounds/dp/1849491348

It's a 'book' with an integrated sound system. Just press a button and you get the song (well, a song) of the bird you're looking at.

As one of my chief relaxations involves sitting on boats up muddy creeks, my own favourite and most evocative cries are those of the curlew and the oyster catcher, usually emitted whilst in flight. Both quite unmistakable. Herons, OTOH, make a most disagreeable noise...and rather spoil the ambience. Luckily they do it mainly while nesting/squabbling among themselves. A solitary one merely fishing at the water's edge is usually quiet.

Thank you.

I realised afterwards why this had suddenly cropped up. I am being drawn into dialogue with the feisty (UKIP?) Chair of the Residents Association about a couple of matters and thought it might be useful for her to have my past professional biography (for what it is worth which is not a lot). There was the bit about offices and the bit about places other than offices that were still very indoorsy - meeting rooms, public exhibitions etc. Then I remembered a very early morning ahead of one of the latter when I went strolling among reeds with a woman through eerie Dickensian fog on an estuarial island. It was a pre Twitter day (early 2000s) but there was proper twittering around and it was very atmospheric.

We went in her car. She was our private environmental consultant. I was supposedly the public sector environmental spokesperson who could assure the few hundred residents that their precious SSSIs would not be harmed by a four runway international airport. She felt that it might be useful before all of the aggro of the day if I experienced the sites as someone like she did when engaged in fieldwork. Apart from us and the birds, there was nothing and it could have been on the other side of the world. Months if not years passed by. Various options at a range of sites were considered from every conceivable angle. The protection of birds was put in its place along with a nearby wreck of a ship that was full of explosives. Concerned people kept asking if we would look into the dangers from birds as well as their protection and I couldn't understand why it was being delayed. Finally and equally inexplicably little junior me was assigned to go out to tender and oversee the study which included chairing meetings. Cleverly, I thought, I gave a key role to the RSPB.

I might still have the completed study somewhere. In fact, I think I do. It is full of drawings of birds and lurid assessments of their potential to fly into large passenger aircraft and send them unceremoniously crashing to the ground. Obviously this was not long after 9/11. I was neutral as required but I also managed to find during the discussions a very memorable answer to the anticipated question from seniors "what practically could be done about them to prevent such an occurrence?""You would need" I advised them on the basis of evidence produced from elsewhere - was it Hong Kong or somewhere else? - "a circular runway around the new airport for a number of corgis to consistently run round. Like a greyhound track only not for a race and not with greyhounds". Whether it was disbelief or exasperation at this bizarre presentation that led to the decision I don't know. Surely it wasn't pure politics? Anyway, the option sank without trace before the London Town Hall had a try with something called "Boris Island". And that too didn't get very far.

[ardcarp]

The starlings down at Sainsbury's car park frequently emit wolf whistles, and are only frightened away by sounds of fretting birds relayed over the store's external tannoy. The blokish side of S London culture indeed dies hard...

Whilst music students, Mrs A and I frequently heard a blackbird outside our student flat which whistled the opening bars of Mozart's 40th quite accurately. Naturally we called it the G Minah bird....

[Lat-Literal]

Whilst music students, Mrs A and I frequently heard a blackbird outside our student flat which whistled the opening bars of Mozart's 40th quite accurately. Naturally we called it the G Minah bird....

(I have just remembered that it was collies not corgis but the principle is the same - http://www.notedfiles.com/2016/04/bi...es-patrol.html)

[Serial_Apologist]

"You would need" I advised them on the basis of evidence produced from elsewhere - was it Hong Kong or somewhere else? - "a circular runway around the new airport for a number of corgis to consistently run round. Like a greyhound track only not for a race and not with greyhounds". Whether it was disbelief or exasperation at this bizarre presentation that led to the decision I don't know. Surely it wasn't pure politics? Anyway, the option sank without trace before the London Town Hall had a try with something called "Boris Island". And that too didn't get very far.

I can appreciate that corgi recommendation, given that dachsunds would have been low enough to allow aircraft to pass over them.

I wonder if I'm the only person on this forum likely to have been in favour of Boris Island. The usual reason for such opposition to large construction schemes from environmentalists is that they interfere with migratory bird resting places - the hydroelectric barriers being proposed for the S Wales coastline coming in for similar criticism- but in the Sheppey/Canvey part of the Thames estuary there could surely be found lots of alternative sites, such as the one that has been reclaimed from a military shooting range as part of the South Hornchurch Country Park near the Essex Rainham, which one understands has successfully attracted a large number of fauna and flora back.

[ardcarp]

I wonder if I'm the only person on this forum likely to have been in favour of Boris Island?

No. I reckon he would have been so excited about the whole project he would have declared UDI for Borisland...and arguably have been less bother to the world than in his present post (for which, IMO, he is just not godunov ).