Backyard Birdsong Guide: Western North America Review

Backyard Birdsong Guide: Western North America

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Authors: Donald Kroodsma

Price: Hardcover: $24.95 includes sound feature - Purchase Here

Available at: Chronicle Books, 680 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

We saw our first robin of the spring, the other day, and that means that we'll be seeing more and more birds in the coming weeks. Some of them will be migratory, just passing through on their way to their summer range, others will build their nests in our neighborhood and raise families here, and still others stayed the winter (but it's always nice to see them).

We did a study about birds last year, and The Backyard Birdsong Guide was an important part of the study. This book has some of the features of our other field guides (colorful pictures, range maps, descriptions of the birds and their habitats). What makes the book pure gold for us is that it is a guide to the songs of the birds in our backyard and local parks and wildlife refuges.

The book begins with an introductory section, a series of essays on why birds sing, where each bird gets its song, the difference between songs and calls, suggestions for enhancing your listening skills and experience, and a couple of pages devoted to how to use the book and built-in audio player. Keep in mind that scientists don't know exactly why birds do what they do; much of this information is based on observation and coming up with the best explanation without actually getting into a bird's brain. There is evolutionary content as well. The birds are divided into two main sections, the passerines ("perching birds," including most of your typical songbirds) and the non-passerines (waterfowl, raptors, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, and doves among them). Within each of these major sections are smaller divisions. Many of the birds are in a class of their own, such as the red-tailed hawk, the only representative of the hawk and eagle family in the Western North America edition of The Backyard Birdsong Guide. Other groupings may have a number of entries, like the thrushes, warblers, and wrens.

For each bird, there's a two-page spread. One page is devoted to a large color illustration of the bird, while the other contains a summary of the bird's range, habitat, and physical description, along with a detailed discussion of the bird's vocalizations.

The built-in audio function is what really makes this book unique. I've read plenty of descriptions of bird songs in various field guides, but they never made much sense to me unless I was already familiar with the sound a particular species of bird made. However, hearing is another story. We went on a guided hike at a national refuge. The guide told us what to listen for, and pointed out various bird songs. It wasn't long before we were able to identify the various birds in the area just by their voices. The Backyard Birdsong Guide contains recordings of the birds on its pages, often multiple recordings for a single species. The controls are simple. There's a volume control, a scroll function to find a particular recording, and a button to play the selected recording. The player shuts itself off after 30 seconds of inactivity to conserve the batteries. By the way, the player comes with three AAA batteries that can be replaced when they run down, meaning you'll be able to use this book for a long time.

The final pages of the book include a section entitled "More Fun with Birdsong." In this section, you'll find weblinks to online birdsong collections, not just recordings, but also sonograms that enable you to see the characteristics of the song you're hearing, adding a depth of richness. There's also a list of additional reading and listening sources, credits for the illustrators and those who recorded the songs in the book, and information about the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the artists and author. Finally, there's an index, including all the birds listed by their common and scientific names.

You'll find The Backyard Birdsong Guide a valuable tool for your study of birds, or for just plain bird watching pleasure. The Guide is also available for Eastern and Central North America (see related review).

Review by: Zandra Owen
Busy homeschool mom who lives smack-dab in the middle of the madding crowd.