Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Home
Today's Show: Spring Brings New Bird Songs
House Finch perched on branch, looking over its shoulder showing red-colored head and throat
Listen In
  • Today's Show
  • Listen
    • Daily Shows
    • Threatened
    • Grouse
    • BirdNote Presents
    • How to Listen
  • Explore
    • Field Notes
    • Sights & Sounds
    • Birdwatching
    • Resources for Educators
  • How to Help Birds
    • At Home
    • In Your Community
    • Success Stories
  • About
    • The BirdNote Story
    • The Team
    • Partners
    • For Radio Stations
    • Funding
    • Contact Us
    • FAQs
    • Support BirdNote
  • Donate

Birding without Sight

Learning to identify birds by their songs
Subscribe to the Podcast
Download
  • Share This:
  • Share to Facebook
  • Share to Twitter
  • Share to Email
© Paul Bannick

It can be difficult to identify a bird by its appearance, and just as challenging to do so by its song. But birding by ear is a great way to get to know birds. A blind birder in Kitsap County, Washington, was puzzled by a haunting bird song. She thought it might be a special song of the American Robin (seen left here). It turned out instead to be the song of a Swainson's Thrush (right). To hear the songs of these and other thrushes, visit the Macaulay Library. We'll help you find birding-by-ear resources, too.

  • Full Transcript
  • Credits

BirdNote®

Birding Without Sight

Written by Ellen Blackstone

This is BirdNote!

[Ambient from the Eastern Bluebird track]

What’s it like to go birdwatching if you can’t see the birds? Close your eyes for a moment, and listen. [Song of Eastern Bluebird]

A professor of political science at Mt. Holyoke, Donald Morgan, was blinded at age 16. As an adult, he liked to walk the roads of rural New England, listening to birds of the open country, especially bluebirds [Song of Eastern Bluebird]. His favorite woodland bird was the ethereal Hermit Thrush [Song of Hermit Thrush].

It can be difficult to identify a bird by its appearance, and just as challenging to do so by its song. Blind listener Jan LaPrath told us that a certain birdsong had haunted her. [Song of a Swainson’s Thrush] It seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite identify it. Was it an American Robin?  [Evening song of American Robin]

When she listened to a CD of the birdsounds of her area, she found that it was instead the song of a Swainson’s Thrush. [Song of a Swainson’s Thrush]  The two birds are closely related, and Jan heard the similarity in their songs. [Evening song of American Robin]

On our website, you’ll find resources for birding by ear. And you can listen again to the songs of the four thrushes you just heard: the Eastern Bluebird, the American Robin, the Hermit Thrush and the Swainson’s Thrush.

We’re BirdNote.org. I’m Michael Stein.

###

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Eastern Bluebird song recorded by W.L. Hershberger. Hermit Thrush song recorded by G.A. Keller. Swainson’s Thrush song recorded by G.A. Keller. 

American Robin evening song recorded by Donald Kroodsma  CD from The Singing Life of Birds, by Donald Kroodsma, Houghton Mifflin, Co., New York, New York.  2005

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Chris Peterson

© 2013 Tune In to Nature.org          July 2013

ID# 072506blindKPLU              blind-01b

Ellen Blackstone
Writer
Michael Stein
Narrator
Paul Bannick
Photographer
Gerry Dewaghe
Photographer
Support More Shows Like This
Tagsbirdwatching by ear

Related Resources

Visit the Macaulay Library to listen to bird song and much more!American Robin - More at All About BirdsSwainson's Thrush - More at All About BirdsResources for birding by earAnd MORE birding by ear resources

More About These Birds

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

Turdus migratorius

Swainson's Thrush (Catharus ustulatus)

Catharus ustulatus

Sights & Sounds

Related Field Notes

February 10, 2020

Tweets 'n' Squawks: Learn How to Identify Birds by Song

By Adam Sedgley
Nothing signals spring quite like singing birds.
December 18, 2017

What does it take to record the world’s birds?

By Gerrit Vyn

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

Support BirdNote

  • Daily Shows
  • Field Notes
  • BirdNote Presents
  • Sights & Sounds
  • About BirdNote
  • Contact BirdNote
Sign up for our newsletter!
  • BirdNote on Facebook
  • BirdNote on Twitter
  • BirdNote on Instagram

Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy