Last updated on April 8th, 2023 at 11:29 am
Bird songs are a great way to identify bird species. Often you’ll hear more than you’ll see, and you can trust that a bird’s song is unique to the species.
To identify a bird’s song, use one of the following 8 methods:
1. Start Small with Just One or Two Species
When you first start learning to identify birds by sound, start with just one or two species.
It’s easier to recognize a bird song when you’re specifically searching it, rather than trying to pick up on and identify all the bird songs that are happening at once.
This makes the process of learning bird songs easier and more rewarding from the start.
Consider starting with the Northern Mockingbird, as males are known to learn up to 200 songs.
2. Research Bird Songs and Listen to Recordings
When you’re first getting started identifying birds by sound, you should spend time listening to recordings of birds.
Doing so will help you learn and remember their sounds.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers an online class in identifying bird songs.
Additionally, many online field guides contain bird songs, like this one from the National Audubon Society.
3. Concentrate on One Bird at a Time
No matter how experienced you are at birding, you’ll need to focus on identifying one bird at a time when you’re out in the field.
This can be more difficult at first, but picking one voice out of a chorus gets easier as you learn what you should be listening for.
Try finding the birds you’re most familiar with first. Then, move on to the more difficult ones.
4. Relate the Sound to Words
By learning how to categorize and even diagram sound, you can capture intel about many different birds.
Sometimes, it’s easier to remember a bird song if you relate it to words or sounds that you’re familiar with.
For example, the Barred Owl has a call that sounds like “Who cooks for you,” and the Common Yellowthroat has a call that sounds similar to “wichity-wichity-wichity.”
5. Break the Song Into Pieces
As you’re listening to a bird song, break it into pieces so that you can focus on just one element of the tune.
For example, you might choose to focus on rhythm, pitch, repetition, or tone.
Rhythm
Each bird song has a unique tempo. Some are faster and more fluttery, and others are smoother and slower.
Try imitating the bird’s rhythm by tapping, or use a journal to write down the rhythmic pattern.
This will help you remember a key identifying feature of the bird’s song.
Pitch
Learning the pitch of a bird’s song can sometimes tell you about the size of the bird. Bigger birds also tend to have deeper voices.
Some birds have a wide range in pitch, like the Prairie Warbler or the Canyon Wren.
Others have a narrow range of pitches that are extremely distinctive, like the Chipping Sparrow.
Repetition
In addition to the rhythm and pitch, you’ll need to pay attention to how sounds are repeated.
Each bird has its own pattern of repetition.
Some repeat the same sound three or four times in one call, where others have one or two long syllables in the call.
The more you listen, the easier this will be to pick up on.
Tone
The tone of a bird’s song is more subjective than its rhythm, pitch, or repetition pattern.
To determine tone, ask yourself what the song sounds like:
- Is it scratchy or harsh?
- Or is it more clear and flute-like?
These traits are what characterize the tone of a bird’s song.
Since birds don’t always sing the same notes, remembering the tone of the call is often one of the most important pieces of identifying bird songs.
6. Diagram the Sound with a Spectogram
One way to identify a bird’s song is to learn to create a spectrogram, which you can compare against existing records of a bird’s song.
Drawing and Using Spectrograms
Spectrograms are graphical representations of bird songs in which the y-axis is the vocal pitch, the x-axis is time, and the brightness of the marks is volume.
This bird song identification game from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology illustrates what a spectrogram looks like and how you can use it to identify bird songs:
7. Categorize the Song Pattern
A bird’s song pattern can be characterized as a phrase, series, warble, or trill.
- Phrase: A phrase is a pattern of sounds that are different from each other but slow, like the Eastern Meadowlark’s song.
- Series: A series is a pattern of sounds that are the same notes repeated slowly, like the Northern Flicker’s song.
- Warble: A warble is a pattern of sounds that are different from each other and fast.
- Trill: A trill is a pattern of sounds that are the same notes repeated quickly, such as you hear with the Chipping Sparrow.
8. Use an App Such As BirdGenie
Finally, you can use an application to help you identify bird songs. Each has unique features that are useful both when studying and when out in the field.
BirdGenie
BirdGenie allows you to record bird songs and run them through a bird identification algorithm that matches your recording to real bird songs.
It even has a noise-reduction feature that enables it to identify bird songs even when they’re recorded in noisy environments.
You can also use BirdGenie to save a record of the birds you’ve identified, and you can click to read more about them in the app.
This app does not require an internet connection. It uses an in-app library to identify the calls.
The Audubon Bird Guide App
The Audubon Bird Guide App hosts a database of 800 North American bird species.
The app allows you to enter traits you’ve observed about the bird, and then it matches your bird to one in the database.
Furthermore, it separates bird sounds into distinct voice types, like chirping, yodeling, and screaming.
You can listen to examples of the voice types in-app, then choose which sounds most similar to the one you’re hearing.
After identifying the kind of bird song you’re hearing, the app will present you with a list of possible bird species that you can further narrow down with other traits.
You can also listen to clips of each bird species to help you match the sound.
Merlin Bird ID
Merlin Bird ID, created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has a feature where you can set the app to listen to a bird’s song and match it with a song in its database.
You can use this along with photo identification software, which matches pictures of a bird to an existing picture of a bird species.
With this app, you can also save a list of birds you’ve seen and explore lists of birds identified near you.
See also our article on why pishing sounds attract birds.