I have a few birds near my house that I hear almost daily and I would love to learn more about. But obviously Googling a call is difficult. Any tips or ideas for identifying the calls? I’m in the Pacific NW of the US if that helps.
I have a few birds near my house that I hear almost daily and I would love to learn more about. But obviously Googling a call is difficult. Any tips or ideas for identifying the calls? I’m in the Pacific NW of the US if that helps.
I’ve had a lot of success using Merlin Bird ID (by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) to figure out what birds I’m hearing around my house. It listens and detects likely birds based on the songs, and then provides a lot of additional information about the bird and sample songs. It also has other features for helping identify birds visually.
It’s been very informative for understanding that many of the distinct sounds I’m hearing regularly actually come from the same bird. I didn’t realize how much variation a single bird could have until I started using this app.
As for learning the calls, that’s going to come down to standard learning techniques. Merlin Bird ID doesn’t have any flashcard style learning built in.