The Sound Approach to Birding: A Guide to Understanding Bird Sound

WHEN I FIRST heard about The Sound Approach to Birding I was not particularly interested in reading it, assuming it was just another book, complete with CDs, about bird songs. However, a number of my birding friends spoke very highly of it so I thought it must be worth a closer look. I’m so glad that I did give it not only a closer look but, more importantly, a closer listen, as I think this is the most original bird book I have read in the past decade.

The two CDs are made for listening while you are reading the book, as they provide acoustic ‘illustrations’ of everything mentioned in the text. I borrowed my daughter’s portable CD player (which had been gathering dust since the arrival of her iPod) and sat back to take full advantage of the ‘sound approach’ experience.

The text is written in a very chatty but readable style, and is full of personal anecdotes. It frequently draws on parallel human situations to get a point across, such as adult birds that behave like DJs sampling sounds, then mixing and matching with whatever is fashionable in that area. The sound example illustrating this is of a population of Blackcaps in Mallorca that have all seemingly sampled and incorporated Great Tit song into their repertoire.

The book starts off by describing the essential building blocks of bird sound such as tone, timbre, pitch and rhythm, each with clear, understandable examples. I particularly liked the sol-fa scale of frequency ranging from Bittern through to Lesser Whitethroat. Yes, Lesser Whitethroat song has elements that are nearly twice as high in frequency as Goldcrest song, although I can’t say that I have ever detected them in the field (I’ll be listening for them in future, though). I also liked the use of Locustella warblers (Grasshopper, Savi’s, Lanceolated and River) to illustrate differences in both rhythm and pitch.

As a regular reader of BWP, I have been familiar with sonograms for years, but this is the first time I have ever studied them while actually listening to the sounds. I could not believe just how much this brings boring sonograms to life. For example, the hweet calls of Common Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Yellow-browed Warbler become so much more memorable when you can relate the fall and rise to the sonograms.

I have always found separation of the calls of Goldcrest and Firecrest very difficult, but once again the sonograms show how different they are, and also how best to separate them. The interpretive comments on each of the sonograms are also very helpful for reinforcing the information in the text.

I cannot imagine there is a single birder in the country who would not benefit from reading this book. I also cannot imagine there would be anyone who would not learn something new. Revelations for me included the fact that Magpies have a pleasant warbling song and that female Dunnocks sing.

I also now understand why I have usually failed to identify bird songs when they are played down the telephone (a surprisingly frequent occurrence when you work for RSPB) and why I am occasionally wrong-footed by Blackcaps when their separation from Garden Warblers does not usually cause problems. I was also heartened to learn that I am not the only one who has been caught out by Jays imitating Tawny Owls and Goshawks, or by the woodpecker-like kit note at the end of Chaffinch song in Eastern Europe.

Mimicry is also dealt with rather well. You can listen to the song of a Marsh Warbler full of mimicry, then listen to each mimetic piece alongside the song of the bird being mimicked. The sonograms reinforce the similarity. I was surprised to learn that most songbirds incorporate mimicry to some degree in their repertoire.

There is much to fuel potential additions to life lists, with evidence for vocal differences between, for example, European Storm-petrels in Britain and the Mediterranean, and American and European Two-barred Crossbills. The laughing call of American Moorhen (subspecies cachinnans, which means laughing) is markedly different, too, from that of its European counterpart. Then there is the bewildering array of Common Crossbill calls, which are all quite different when you listen to them side by side, although I’m not sure I’d be confident enough to identify each type without a sonogram.

Having been rather dismissive of CDs of bird sounds in the past, I must admit that I really enjoyed listening to these. I could close my eyes and be transported to somewhere I had heard these birds myself. The duetting Thrush Nightingales and the sounds of Woodcock and European Nightjar were particular favourites. Helpfully, all of the background calls are also identified.

A few of the recordings were amusing too. Try listening to the ‘broadband’ trumpeting of the Trumpeter Finch while looking at the sonogram. It makes me smile every time. The ‘expressive sounds’ of male King Eiders also made me smile, as did the profanities uttered by Magnus Robb when something collapsed while he was recording Ménétries’s Warbler.

Having been birdwatching (and listening to birds) for more than 30 years, I felt that my abilities with bird vocalisations had reached a plateau. Being honest, I rather thought there wasn’t much left for me to learn. This book has made me realise just how much I did not know. I feel I can now appreciate and understand bird vocalisations much better and I have already started listening to birds in a different way.

• The Sound Approach to Birding by Mark Constantine and The Sound Approach (The Sound Approach, Dorset, 2006).

•192 pages, colour illustrations and photographs throughout and more than 160 sonograms; 2 CDs featuring 198 tracks of 179 species.

• ISBN 9789081093316. Hbk, £29.95.

Available from Birdwatch bookshop