If you wish to broaden your bird-identification skills and gain an advantage in telling birds apart by song, this audio guide is perfect for you.

The birds in this guide are grouped together based on the similarities of their calls, as well as habitat preferences. By doing this, the authors of this guide have allowed the learner to compare similar sounding species likely to be confuse in the field.

Richard Walton's clear voice introduces each species and walks the listener through the various groupings. Throughout, he points out key characteristics of each bird call to enhance the listener's learning experince. The birds featured in each group on this three disc set include many familar eastern North American species. The eastern woodpeckers, several confusing sparrow species, buetos, tanagers and several other neotropical migrants are featured on the first disc. The second features several owl species and a variety of flycatchers among others. The third CD is comprised mostly of neotropical songbirds and a few odds and ends species: common eastern warblers, thrushes, plus American bittern. The third disc also includes a several groupings of birds that allows the listener's to test their bird vocalization identification skills.

Along with the CDs, a complementry booklet with surprisingly good black-and-white illistrations is included. This helps the birder make visual assocations with the species they are hearing. Room is provided on each page for the listener to take notes on the various bird vocalizations. Page numbers for locating the birds on the plates in the PETERSON FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS: EASTERN/CENTRAL REGION are also provided in the booklet.

Overall, this three-CD set serves as a nice introduction/learning tool to the voices of Eastern North America's birds. It allows the learner to broaden his or her bird identifiaction skills. It is especially useful for beginners, but experienced enthusiats may also find the guide highly useful in comparing bird calls. A great buy.

By grouping bird song according to characteristics, this clear guide makes it easier to learn and be able to identify bird song. The method of grouping similar types of songs on the CD, along with the brief, written guide enclosed, enables you to locate and identify birds you hear in the field much more easily than guides that simply list songs in order of the species' appearance in bird guides. Songs and calls are both included, as well as variations, which is very helpful as birds have "dialects" and variations in song patterns just like people of different areas have.

When I first received this CD I was disappointed & overwhelmed. I thought, how could I possibly learn any of these bird calls (I'm 50 years old). It seemed like a monumental task. Well, I kept listening over and over (thinking the mnemonics were silly) and low and behold things started to click. I made a few forays into the field and was very excited when I heard bird calls and the mnemonics made sense. I still get excited when I'm able to identify a bird by song or call. I even find myself doing it on TV commercials. This CD isn't any good if you don't include field work with it. Practice, practice, practice and one day you will be out in the field and hear a bird and know exactly what you are looking for. This CD has made me a much better birder.

The second installment of the "By Ear" series is even more impressive than the previous guide. MORE BIRDING BY EAR has more wood warblers, sandpipers, and terns than BIRDING BY EAR and features the songs and calls of many of the most sought after bird species in Eastern/Central North America.

Once again, Richard Walton introduces each species and takes the listener through the various groupings. The birds are grouped based on habitat and the similarities of their calls. Walton points out key characteristics of each bird call to enhance the listener's learning experince. The handles he suggests for identifying each call are enormously helpful and enhance the listern's experience.

The birds featured on these discs are some of the rarer, hard to find species that can often only be identified by song. Rails, Empidonax flycatchers, cuckoos, kinglets, and a variety of waterbirds are inlcuded on the first disc. The second features around two-dozen warbler species (including the infamous waterthrushes) plus several of the less familar sparrows such as the Bachman's and Grasshopper. The third CD is comprised mostly of shorebirds, and finishes with habiat groups from such birding hotspots as Cape May. These groupings allow the listener to test his or her bird call identification skills. Sprinkled throughout the guide are species calls that tie up loose ends left by the previous discs; common loon, brown creeper, osprey, saw-whet owl, fish crow and blue-headed vireo are just a sample of the variety of species you'll find on this three disc set.

Along with the CDs, a complementry booklet with surprisingly good black-and-white illistrations is included. This helps the listener make visual assocations with the species they are hearing. Room is provided on each page for the listener to take notes on the various bird vocalizations. Page numbers for locating the birds on the plates in the PETERSON FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS: EASTERN/CENTRAL REGION are also provided in the booklet.

MORE BIRDING BY EAR is great learning tool for experienced and novice birders alike. The rails and shorebird sections are very helpful. The second disc is packed with warblers. The authors have done a superb job at covering close to all the birds found in Eastern North America. Between this disc set and the previous one, listeners should be able to learn enough to identifiy most of the birds they can hear while birding in the East. Another great buy.

Most birdsong CDs/tapes are lengthy "lists" of birdsongs. The "Birding by Ear" series is a unique tutorial that teaches you to recognise and recall birdsongs. If you want to learn to identify birds by their songs and calls this is the product for you! "More Birding by Ear" includes many of the Eastern warblers as well as shorebirds, flycatchers, rails and other groups.

....This set of audio tapes was a disappointment to me. I had wanted a set of bird songs to accompany my new Peterson Eastern Birds field guide, 4th edition.( Previously, I had owned the 2nd edition and its excellent, page-coordinated, accompanying tapes and had used them for years.) I bought this new set of audio tapes blind, so to speak, because they were shrink-wrapped with no real description visible. No one in any of the retail stores I consulted knew anything about them nor was willing to break into the shrink-wrapping.
....Birding by Ear, Eastern/Central is actually a 3-tape short course in identifying bird calls. It is essentially useless for field identification. To make use of this set of tapes, one would have to sit down and listen and listen and listen to interminable commentary by a sonorous male voice introducing bird calls in clusters that are of minimal use because they are grouped by similarity, which often doesn't translate into geography or habitat. The second side of the third tape is a "review" that is actually a test.... one must listen to a series of unidentified songs and try to remember what they are, after having spent the hours required to listen to the other 5 sides of the tapes.
.... The up side of this set of tapes is that the bird song recordings are excellent. They include both the song and the call. (But they are useless in the field in this format.)

If you live in North America east of the Mississipi and want to identify birds by ear, read on...

This audio set is a very well thought out and produced tutorial for introducing beginning "ear" birders to the world of birding by ear. The audio quality is excellent with several renditions of each song and call. The pace is well suited to the target audience - only after repeated listening will you want to skip ahead through sections. The groupings of similar songs seem well designed, and reflect situations in the field that pose problems. Each song is described verbally, with an onomatopoetic description. I wish the CD were coded so that sub-tracks could be accessed directly without the introductory descriptions, but the design of this set isn't as encyclopedia of song, rather as short course in learning how to identify song.

Buy this and the "More birding by ear", listen to them for 10 - 30 minutes a day (great drive time listening), and master the art of birding by ear!

Great learning tool for the novice and a great reminder for the seasoned veteran.

This CD lives up to the high quality standards of the Peterson Field Guide series and is a marvelous introduction to bird songs. I have taught ornithology courses for a number of years and this is the CD I recommend to my students.

To anyone just discovering the joys of birding, visual identification of birds can be overwhelming with over 650 species found in North America alone. If visual identification is difficult, audio identification can be nearly impossible.

BACKYARD BIRD SONG comes to the rescue by focusing the listener's attention on 28 of the most common backyard birds. Learning these songs and calls will boost your confidence and enable you to identify nearly all of the birds you hear on a daily basis. The recordings are grouped into categories of similar sounds such as "sing-songers" and "whistlers." This clustering facilitates comparisons of potentially confusing bird vocalizations.

The CD's one down side is that you cannot go directly to the song of a given bird. You are limited to selecting a song grouping and then waiting for the desired bird.