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University of New Hampshire Extension Professor Matt Tarr teaches how to identify 62 common New England bird species. In addition to the most easily recognized sounds, listeners learn the habitat the bird species is most likely to be found.
001. Lesson - Introduction
Welcome to An Audio Guide To Identifying New England Birds By Their Sounds - Volume 1: The Songbird Songs & Calls You Should Learn First
The ability to recognize birds from their vocalizations greatly increases your ability to find and identify birds in the field.
This is true during any month of the year, but especially during spring through late summer - when the greatest variety of bird species are in the New England region, but dense foliage often makes it difficult to see birds well enough to identify them by sight alone. And some species, like Alder Flycatcher (song) and Willow flycatcher (Song), can only be identified confidently by listening for differences in their song.
Knowing how to identify birds by their songs & calls is a skill that can improve anyone's enjoyment of the outdoors. (song) What a joy (!) to finally to know that the bird that's always singing outside your window each morning is a Northern cardinal, or sitting on your deck and (Dawn chorus) realizing for the first time, just how many different bird species you share the outdoor space with around your home.
Birders who can identify the common birds in the areas where they bird, can quickly direct their attention to where a specific species is singing from, and then move in to get a closer look. Knowing the songs and calls of the common birds in your area, is a crucial prerequisite to being able to quickly recognize when an uncommon or rare species is vocalizing.
For natural resources professionals, the ability to identify birds by their vocalizations allows one to quickly assess a bird community within a habitat (song) and then monitor how that community changes as the habitat changes - either naturally or as the result of habitat management. And when avian biologists conduct a formal bird survey - such as a point count - often more than half of the bird species they inventory are never seen - they are identified entirely by their songs or calls (song)
Greetings! I'm Matt Tarr. I'm a professional wildlife habitat biologist; I've been an avid birder and student of bird vocalizations for over 30 years; and I have the great fortune to teach bird identification to hundreds of beginner and experienced birders in person each year.
I created this audio guide because I know first-hand, that learning how to identify birds by their songs and calls is challenging - it can be down-right frustrating - but it's so rewarding when you put in the effort and suddenly find the names of birds automatically popping into your head when you hear them sing or call.
The lessons in this audio guide include all the tips and tricks I've found most effective for helping me and my students learn how to recognize and remember the vocalizations of different birds in the field.
So folks might ask - Why do I need to learn how to identify bird songs? I have an app that does that.
The advent of cell phone-based apps that can hear and identify bird songs has transformed the outdoor experience for many people. For example, at the time of this recording, the Merlin app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is truly a revolutionary app and for the first time, birders of all abilities have a very useful tool for helping them identify bird vocalizations real-time. I use Merlin regularly because it often hears some birds before I do, and when birding alone it can be nice to get a second ID to confirm an uncommon bird I've identified. However, as great as these apps are, they aren't fool proof. They ARE improving constantly, but I find they often don't pick up birds that I can hear and identify, and they still regularly make incorrect Identifications.
As a result, birders who report their bird observations to eBird are asked to not report birds identified by an app alone - they are asked to confirm the identification by hearing and identifying the bird themself - and this isn't possible if you haven't learn how to do that. Learning how to identify birds by their songs and calls will allow you to confidently confirm or discount birds that were identified by an app and it will greatly improve your skills as a birder.
Add a transition with a chorus here
I've titled Volume 1 of this audio guide: The Songbird Songs & Calls Your Should Learn First because the 62 species included in this guide are the ones you are most likely to encounter regularly throughout New England; the common vocalizations for most of these species are relatively easy to recognize, and learning these vocalizations will train your ear and make it easier for you to distinguish the vocalizations of less common or more challenging bird species. Although woodpeckers, the Mourning dove and American woodcock aren't technically songbirds, I've included them here because they are species folks will regularly encounter in New England. I recorded all of the bird vocalizations included in this guide at common birding locations and eBird Hot Spots throughout New Hampshire and Southern Maine between 2022 and 2024.
Most bird species make a wide variety of different vocalizations (vocalizations). For example, Black-capped chickadees have at least 16 different kinds of vocalizations that they use for communicating with one another and with other species. Some bird vocalizations sound very similar, if not identical, to those of other species, and even experienced birders would need to SEE the bird to know confidently what species was making the sound. We're going to IGNORE those kinds of vocalizations in this audio guide!
Instead, we'll focus on learning the vocalizations that are the most DIAGNOSTIC for each species. This means, we'll learn the songs and/or calls that are the most recognizable and unique for each species - the ones that other species are unlikely to make. For example, you'll learn that this unique call (one SCTA chick-burr) is only made by the Scarlet tanager...so if you hear (two SCTA chick-burrs) you can be confident to know you are listing to a Scarlet tanager - there is no other species that is likely to make that call...well...except maybe Northern mockingbird...but I teach you some eazy tricks to know when you're hearing a mockingbird - like Mockingbirds tends to repeat a certain sound about four times before switching to a different sound - that they'll make about four times - before switching to a new sound (NOMO song)
So what's the difference between a bird Song and a bird Call?
Bird vocalizations are usually categorized as either Songs or Calls. Songs are usually longer in duration and more elaborate vocalizations than Calls. For example, here's the Song of the Scarlet tanager (song) and here again is the Call of the Scarlet tanager (Call)
SONGS are used by birds to announce their identity, to defend territories, and to attract mates. For most species, MALE birds do most of the singing…but females of many species also sing. Due to the important role of song in territory defense and mate attraction, most birds tend to sing the most during the early breeding season when they are first establishing a territory and looking for a mate. Many migrant songbirds sing very little, if at all, once the breeding season in over.
CALLS are non-song vocalizations that serve a variety of communication functions among birds and the calls you will learn in this guide are usually made by males and females. Most calls are simple vocalizations compared to a bird's song, and most species call throughout the year.
Some birds communicate with Non-vocal sounds. Woodpeckers for example, communicate by drumming (PIWO) and in this audio guide you will learn how to identify a few woodpecker species by their diagnostic drumming patterns…like the Pileated woodpecker, who's drumming sounds like a wooden ball dropped onto a hardwood floor (PIWO Drum).
Throughout this guide, I will teach you different MNEMONICS for recognizing the Songs & Calls of different bird species. A mnemonic is a memory aid...and birders usually assign words or phrases to different bird vocalizations to help them more quickly recognize and remember the songs and calls of specific bird species. For example...the most common mnemonic used to recognize the Scarlet tanager's call is Chick -burr! (call). Being able to put words to a bird's vocalization is helpful for quickly picking that vocalization out of a sea of bird noise and then for recalling what species makes that sound.
(EATO) In this audio guide, I will introduce you to many of the familar mnemonics that most experienced birders use to recognize different vocalizations…like the song of Eastern towhee sounds like the bird is saying "Drink-your-tea!" (EATO song). But I also include original mnemonics that I've found to be very helpful over the years...for example, my birding student and friend Lauren told me she remembers the Eastern towhee's song as "Trick-or-Treat" (EATO) because this reminds her of the Black, brown and white fall colors of the male Eastern towhee's plumage. As you progress through this audio guide and observe bird vocalizations in the field, I encourage you to try out these mnemonics - or make your own - whatever works - to help you better recognize and remember the songs & calls of different birds. (EATO)
I was introduced to birds and bird vocalizations by my college Ornithology professor Art Borror who sparked in me what has become a lifelong passion to learn about birds and how to identify them by their songs and calls. I quickly found that learning bird vocalizations was something that took time and lots and lots...and lots of practice.
As a new birder, I spent as much time as possible outside listening to birds in their natural habitat and birding whenever possible with more experienced birders who could continuously point out the different birds that were vocalizing and tell me how to recognize them. I literally wore out cassette tapes - and then CDs - of Donald Borror's classic bird recordings and the foundational Petersons Birding By Ear series. Each spring, before the migrating birds returned, I began playing these recordings continuously while commuting to work in my car. At first, I found there were a few bird species that were pretty easy to learn and remember, but most species sounded very similar to me and others seemed pretty much impossible to tell apart.
Once I began studying bird songs seriously, I set the goal to REALLY learn to recognize about 3 to 5 new birds a year….this meant learning the songs or calls of these 3 to 5 species well enough that I wouldn't have to totally relearn them each year.
With time and repeated practice, I was able to hear subtle differences in the patterns, cadence, tone and quality of different bird sounds and found I didn't need to relearn so many birds each year. Today, after observing birds for fun and professionally for 3 decades, I still regularly encounter common and uncommon bird who's vocalizations make me scratch my head... I still regularly need to track some birds down with binoculars to make a positive Identification.
(AMWO peents)
How I suggest you use this audio guide
If you are just beginning to learn bird songs & calls, there is no guide that will allow you to sit down and learn 62 bird species all at once. Take it slow and learn a few birds at a time. Be aware of when you hit your level of learning saturation - this is the point where if you try to learn more species you start to feel like you're forgetting what you've already learned. At that point take a break and come back when you're refreshed. When you do, re-listen to the birds you've already learned and when you're ready, move on to learn another species or two.
Volume 1 of this Audio guide includes three parts.
Part 1 is The Complete Lessons for all 62 species. These lessons teach you what to listen for, specifically, to learn each species, Including any mnemonics that help you better recognize and remember each species.
In part one, easily confused species are grouped together with instructions for how to distinguish similar sounding vocalizations.
In Part 1, the birds are grouped in general habitat categories as you are likely to encounter them as you begin birding in your yard and then move out into the larger landscape around your home.
The first 17 species in the lessons are birds you are likely to encounter regularly in most suburban and rural backyards. If you learn these species first, you will be well-prepared to tackle learning the other species in the later lessons.
The next 18 bird species are likely to occur where the backyard meets the edge of mature forest or where there are shrubby edges or hedgerows. Many of these birds are also common in wooded suburban and rural backyards.
You will then be introduced to common birds you are more likely to encounter deeper in the forest, or when you are near wetland habitat, or when in open pastures or large fields.
Part 1 ends with a grouping of four bird species I call the Challenging Trillers. (Add DEJU trill) These species are probably the most difficult for novice and experienced birds alike to distinguish from their similar sounding songs and they're placed at the end of the lesson for you to tackle once you've trained your ear to be able to hear some of the subtilties in bird song.
Part 2 of this Audio Guide is the Species Review that provides a brief review of each bird species' vocalization that was introduced in Part 1. Each track begins by naming the bird species, followed by a reminder of the most helpful mnemonic or what to listen for, and then the vocalization of the species. Recordings from multiple individuals of each species are included so you can hear some of the individual variation you are likely to encounter in the field.
Part 2 provides a convenient option for quickly reviewing and studying a number of bird species without all of the details that are provided in the complete lessons.
Finally, Part 3 is a Self Quiz. Each track begins with a bird sound and after a pause, the name of the bird species that made that sound is revealed. There are a total of 249 quiz tracks that include all of the sounds you learned in Part 1, and there are multiple examples of most sounds included in the quiz. Part 3 is intended for you to play on a random shuffle anytime you want to test how well you've learned the birds in this guide. Go back and re-listen to the Complete Lesson in Part 1 for any birds that trip you up.
I encourage you to listen to the different parts of this guide regularly. In the car or when working around the house are great times to learn or review a few birds at a time. Then get outside to observe birds as often as possible.
In my experience, there is no better way to really learn the vocalizations of a bird species than to get your eyes on the bird and watch it while it sings or calls. Take the time to stop and really observe ANY bird that is vocalizing.
I tell my students all the time - don't poo-poo the Chick-a-dees and Robins. Meaning don't ignore common birds you think you're familiar with. There is something to learn from every bird - if you just take the time to listen.