Larks, Wagstarts and Pipits

I'm good at identifying backyard birds by sight, but by song is a different matter. And there is nothing more frustrating than not knowing "who" is singing out there in the corner of the yard.

I have this CD set of Western Bird Songs that John gave me years ago, and it lists the calls of all the birds in Peterson's Western Field Guide. If you have an iPhone (which I don't) I understand you can download an app that gives you bird pictures linked to their song recordings. I guess it would be handy in the field (if your phone was working) but when I'm out in nature, I'd rather have my nose in a book than a device. Looking around these days, I think I'm in the minority on that.
Anyway, I have several bird guides, but Roger Tory Peterson is still my favorite. The dear man passed on in 1996, and the range maps in my 1990 edition are out of date. There are newer editions, but I love the way my old soft-cover field guide has survived many backpacks, suitcases and rough use. And photographs, while useful, could never take the place of Peterson's field drawings for ID purposes.

There are a whopping 522 birds on the Western Bird Song CD set, so the tracks are grouped by families of species, which mirror the book:

Titmice, Bushtit and Verdin
Dickcissel, Lark Bunting and Longspurs
Cardinal, Crossbills, and Redpolls
Olive Sparrow, Towhee and Seedeaters
etc.

Of course, most of these birds with the wonderful names don't live in Seattle. And it doesn't help that I have a tin ear, and forget a tune as soon as I hear it. (Except for those jingles and stupid songs you can never get out of your head.) So by the time I've found the right bird grouping on the CD, I forgot what the song sounded like in the first place. More practice is needed.

Here's a poem by Robert Frost, about a woman in a garden and bird song:

Never Again Would Bird's Song Be the Same

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.

Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.

Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.