Tips for learning bird vocalizations

[IKLland]

Everyone, 

Does anyone have tips on how to better learn bird vocalizations? I know the more distinct songs/calls of my local birds, but not most of the sounds. Anyone have tips?

Edited May 22 by IKLland

[JP48]

There's an app called Larkwire that I used a while back.  I haven't used it recently, and I'm pretty sure there's a newer version than what I used, but it was useful.

[lonestranger]

9 hours ago, IKLland said:

Does anyone have tips on how to better learn bird vocalizations? 

Repetitive observation. I think it'd be a lot like learning to identify birds visually, or like learning to identify musicians by the song playing on the radio. Repetitive exposure over time helps, but you need the ear for it. MJ is great at IDing birds by sound but not so great with visual IDs, whereas I am better with visual IDs but simply can't keep the auditory clues straight in my head. I think my short answer to your question would be, patiently. 

[Birds are cool]

10 hours ago, IKLland said:

Everyone, 

Does anyone have tips on how to better learn bird vocalizations? I know the more distinct songs/calls of my local birds, but not most of the sounds. Anyone have tips?

I used the ebird sound quiz a LOT when I was trying to learn bird songs/calls. 

Another way I learned bird sounds was by listening to 10-15 species at a time, until I had them mastered,(about a few hours), and then add a few more species in.

My last suggestion is to go birding more! When I first started trying to learn bird song, I used Merlin sound ID in the field, and then Merlin would tell me what the bird singing/calling was. I then would listen to that bird for 2-5 mins and every time it would vocalise, I would think about the bird species, creating a connection between the species and the song on my head. 

Merlin Sound ID according to a rough average of all of my Sound IDs is right around 96.5 percent of the time.

Hope that helped!

 

[Kevin]

10 hours ago, IKLland said:

Everyone, 

Does anyone have tips on how to better learn bird vocalizations? I know the more distinct songs/calls of my local birds, but not most of the sounds. Anyone have tips?

Take the time to observe birds calling/singing. Actually watch them doing it as much as possible, something about watching a bird call really makes your mind connect the song with the bird.

[Connor Cochrane]

I feel like it's something that just takes time. It took me about 5 years to be confident with all the bird calls in the locals. The songs were quick to learn but flight notes and other odd calls took longer. Just getting out as much as possible and trying to find what's making an unusual call is the best thing to do imo.

[Quiscalus quiscula]

Yeah, mostly experience, but it helps to look up the calls on the Audubon field guide, which I think has the best collection of the different bird calls and sounds of particular species. I'm personally not a fan of the eBird sound quiz if you're starting to learn bird calls because the audio is often very poor quality or even misidentified since they just pull the lowest rated sound recordings from Macaulay. 

[Avery]

Mnemonics are great, especially if you make them. Similarly, using already mastered songs to use in identifying lesser known songs. When you hear something you don’t know, take note of your interpretation of it. What is its tone and pattern similar to? For example, today I heard a sparrow song I couldn’t place. My first impression was that it was an odd towhee. I kept listening, and noted it was thinner bodied, and had too many parts to be a towhee. Now that I know it was a Lincoln’s Sparrow, i know to associate those first impressions with that species.

Learning tone helps narrow down options, especially when the birds are doing odd songs. And as others have already said, practice, practice, practice. Take careful notice when comparisons present themselves. 
 

Also, plugging @Hasan’s website:

http://earbirder.com

[DLecy]

https://soundapproach.co.uk

These guys are some of the best birders in the world (see Killian Mullarney). The web books and articles are worth checking out.