The Sound Approach to Birding

I consider myself, somewhat modestly, as fairly good at bird sounds. I am not brilliant and know a number of people who are far better at hearing them and then computing the sound with a memory of a bird in their head – some have rather large ears. I have consciously tried to improve my knowledge over the years, particularly as I have been able to travel a little, but since I have got this book, I can see both that I have an awful lot more to learn, and that there is still a whole new world and meaning to those sounds that I need to hear and learn and appreciate.

Mark Constantine and the other members of the Sound Approach – Arnoud van den Berg and Magnus Robb – have put together a fabulous and inspiring book. As an attempt to ‘popularise the sound approach’ to birds it succeeds admirably, and certainly more than ‘provides the vocabulary and biological background to bridge the gap between bird sounds and the much better known visual aspect of birding’. Having been lucky enough to have traveled with Arnoud, I am more than aware of his enormous enthusiasm for the subject, and this book wonderfully expresses it.

The book comes with two CDs, containing a number of recordings, but it is not meant to be a guide to all the bird sounds of Europe or wherever – it is also spattered with great photos and many exciting paintings by Killian Mullarney. Rather it aims to demystify various aspects of listening to birds. The book and the CDs open with evocative calls of Grey and golden plovers then goes onto the sound spectrum of bird sounds – put some earphones on and listen to the Bittern booming, the Cuckoo resonating through the woodland in Poland, or the Redshanks calling, close your eyes and you are there, on Texel with Eiders displaying in the background. Each recording is listed in the text, with the place, date, sometimes time; plus the species you can hear in the background. Many of the recordings are reproduced with minimal or no manipulation – there is a code that explains the amount.

Each recording has a relevance to the text, which deals with many aspects of bird sounds, often using recordings to help train the ear to listen for the subtle differences between similar species. Take for example the calls of Common Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Siberian Chiffchaff and Iberian Chiffchaff. On pages 26 and 27 we are treated to a wonderful explanation of their calls, complete with sonograms, and how to tell them apart. The text is written in a friendly style, slightly joky – maybe not to the liking of some – but it expresses the enthusiasm of the authors for bird sounds and doesn’t (or shouldn’t) hide just how much you are learning.

Though the scope of this book is limited to some extent to the birds within the Western Palearctic, its significance and the ways to listen to bird sounds is wide-ranging. There are some subjects dealt with that are a little more ‘sexy’ than others, and I immediately went for the flight calls of Richard’s, Tawny and Blyth’s Pipits; Blyth’s Reed and Marsh Warblers; Sykes’s and Booted Warblers – the repetition of notes in the Sykes’s (and just how different the two songs were) was enlightening.

Bird identification and taxonomy has historically tended to focus on the way a bird looks – its plumage or structure – but actually it is becoming all too obvious that for many it is the way it sounds that is of equal or more importance. Take, for example the Scytalopus tapaculos in South America, which are in appearance all rather similar, but in voice significantly different. The habitat in which they live, dense moist forest, precludes their need for gaudy plumage, but does mean that subtle differences in voice are of vital importance – and as a result many forms are now being ‘split’ as new species.

Just how important the sound approach is, and the value it will have in future ‘bird ID problems, is amply expressed in the very last chapter. This deals with the conumdrum of the trumpeting calls of Bullfinches heard in western Europe in recent autumns. The call has been thought to be indicative of Northern Bullfinches, but without too much conviction borne of lack of experience. Through sonograms and recordings the authors show that the call does not exist outside of Northern Bullfinches and so ‘it is diagnostic’.

Finally, I have just treated myself to listening to the crossbill recordings. I have to admit that I found this testing, going back and forward through the recordings in an attempt to hear the differences between, for example ‘British’ and ‘Parakeet’ Crossbills, and comparing the sound heard with the sonogram – the authors use a whole range of names to identify different calliung crossbills, ‘Parakeet’, ‘British’, ‘Wandering’, ‘Bohemian’ (doesn’t bohemian mean wandering?), ‘Glip’, ‘Scarce’, ‘Phantom’ alongside Scottish and Parrot. This is a new ball game for me and I wonder if I would cope in the field with these different sounds – it will certainly need a lot of training, but with this book as a starting point I feel that I might be able to go on.

There is so much more this book than I can deal with in a review of it. This book is an inspiration, the recordings are wonderful, the text educational and fun to read. I cannot recommend it too highly. BUY it and buy it now!

Brian Small