jim@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Jim Tear) (06/09/88)
Is there a good field guide to bird songs and calls that gives useful mnemonics for every species like "potato chip", "who cooks for you", "drink your tea"? If there isn't such a book or recording, could we make one right here? Jim Tear -- Hewlett-Packard -- Ft. Collins, CO
gp@picuxa.UUCP (Greg Pasquariello X1190) (06/13/88)
In article <8140005@hpfcdc.HP.COM> jim@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Jim Tear) writes: >Is there a good field guide to bird songs and calls that gives useful >mnemonics for every species like "potato chip", "who cooks for you", >"drink your tea"? If there isn't such a book or recording, could we >make one right here? > > Jim Tear -- Hewlett-Packard -- Ft. Collins, CO Some of th standard song descriptions in field guides give the mnemonics. However, I think one reason that a Field Guide to the Mnemonics would not work out, is that most birds do NOT have songs that are easily put into words. Even the ones that do are heard differently by different people. For instance, by "potato chip", I assume you mean the Common Goldfinch. I hear "per-chick-o- ree". Also, many mnemonics can be assigned to many species with very little stretch of the imagination. By example, someone told me the other day that a white-eyed vireo says "hic three beers". If someone asked me what that song was supposed to be, I would say an olive-sided flycatcher. However, with a little imagination, I really DID hear it say "hic three beers". -- ========================================================================= Greg Pasquariello AT&T Product Integration Center ihnp4!picuxa!gp 299 Jefferson Rd, Parsippany, NJ 07054 =========================================================================
dmark@sunybcs.UUCP (David Mark) (06/14/88)
In article <8140005@hpfcdc.HP.COM> jim@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Jim Tear) writes: >Is there a good field guide to bird songs and calls that gives useful >mnemonics for every species like "potato chip", "who cooks for you", >"drink your tea"? If there isn't such a book or recording, could we >make one right here? > I know of no compact listing of the mnemonics for bird songs, nor any record giving those. Most are listed in the Peterson guides. Of course there are recordings of bird songs available on tape or in other forms, from Cornell or other places. The best source for bird-song learning, other than from tapes, is, in my opinion, the sonograms in the Golden fieldguide. If you look at the sonograms for species whose songs you know, then you may be able to learn to interpret other sonograms (I was able to). And while we are on the general subject, I would like to find/get/produce a guide to European bird songs which mapped them onto North American bird songs. Example, if you hear "House Finch" in Europe, it is probably a Chaffinch. dmark@joey.cs.buffalo.edu