I’m pretty new to birding and can recognize birds by sight pretty well, I mainly struggle with calls. How have you guys learned bird calls? Are there any websites or resources that have helped you learn? Anything helps!
4 Likes
6 Likes
I’d say merlin 
you can listen to bords songs there, and it has a recognition tool too. Could be a good start !
3 Likes
Post some calls as observations on iNat and see if anyone can identify them. Before joining iNat, I knew the calls of the whippoorwill and the chuck-will’s-widow, and I recognized the local crow as a crow, but did not know the sound of the blue jay. I posted a bird call and someone identified it as a blue jay. Now I get confused if I hear a blue jay — is that a jay or a crow? Maybe when I hear a magpie, I’ll recognize it as a corvid, now that I know two corvid calls.
I once found an observation IDed as bird, with a note “Merlin couldn’t ID”. I recognized it as a coquí, a frog I heard in Puerto Rico.
1 Like
Merlin is a free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. You can use it two ways:
If you are outside listening to birds, and you want to identify what you are hearing, you make a sound recording and it gives you suggestions (you have to download the info. packet for your region of the world)
If you are not actively listening to birds, but want to learn the calls of a particular species, you use the “Explore” feature. The search box will lead you to an account of the species, including several recordings of their calls.
If you don’t want to use an app, all of the species accounts and recordings are available on the Cornell free website “All About Birds” https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/
Good luck - have fun!
2 Likes
Come to the realization that I have to re-learn the migrant calls every Spring. Comes quicker over time, but I rarely remember the first time I hear it in the Spring. I will say sometimes my first guess is right more each year. Almost like I remember at least one additional each year.
1 Like
A warning: the bird song course from Bird Academy of the Cornell Lab was thoroughly useless for me, unlike most of their courses.
I used to have a CD of bird songs I’d listen to before doing a bird survey to refresh my memory of expected species in the area. It’s easy to forget calls if you haven’t heard them in a while, and a lot of songs are similar enough to be confusing. This was before Merlin came along and now I’m just lazy and use the app.
4 Likes
Why? What was useless about it, and what would you change?
(I know nothing about this topic, but I am interested in getting the public engaged in nature)
1 Like
It just taught me a few songs of birds that I don’t hear too much (some don’t even live in my area, which makes sense, since why the heck would it be tailored to my area), and I think just being out and looking for the sources of birdsongs was way more helpful.
2 Likes
I agree with the Merlin ID app. Being able to point the phone toward the call and have it tell me what I’m hearing is great. I also like how it will turn yellow for the bird it hears at that moment if more than one is calling at a time.
Me, too! I have CDs from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. They have a CD for Common Birds of Ohio and one for Warblers. I also have a CD that came with the Stokes Field for North American birds. I used to listen to these while driving in my car in the months before spring migration. I really like them because you hear the bird’s name before the recording of the song. I think it helps with associating them. The ODNR CDs come with booklets, too. Flipping through the booklet while listening helps you see the bird that is calling. (I don’t read the booklets while driving.)
The ODNR CDs are available in the Cleveland Metroparks nature centers for free. I’ll bet you can also find them through the ODNR website.
Here’s a link to the Stokes guide:
https://stokesbirdingblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/stokes-field-guide-to-birds-of-north.html
1 Like
I learned by playing A Field Guide To Western Bird Songs countless times (I checked it out from the library when I was a kid!). This was a long time ago. But there was something about listening to it so much that really imprinted it on my brain. There are many more recordings made since then! Good luck and have fun birding, Susan
2 Likes
Listen to birdcalls on youtube or merlin
1 Like
I tried finding sites and apps to learn them, but I found that (a) there are so many (b) each bird seems to use so many different calls and (c) the calls seem to be different depending on the location.
In the end, my approach was to stand and listen, with Merlin telling me what I was hearing. Then I would test myself by trying to figure it out before checking with Merlin. That way, I was learning the most important ones (i.e. the ones in my neighborhood) first.
I used to think “wouldn’t it be great to know all these bird calls - I can hear so many!” Then when I learned some, I realized that I’m not hearing as many different birds as I thought. Occasionally I’ll stand outside and think (very loudly) “If all you cardinals, blue jays and black-capped chickadees would just SHUT UP I might be able to hear something else!”
I can still only identify a handful of species, but it’s a start! 
3 Likes
Try sites like the Cornell University of Ornithology’s bird sites (EBird, All About Birds, and Birds of the world) or the website for the National Audubon society
Merlin song ID is a great resource.
xeno-canto is probably the most exhaustive web site with most species out of America and Europe…