Birdsong by the Seasons: A Year of Listening to Birds

Birdsong by the Seasons is Kroodsma’s follow-up to his excellent The Singing Life of Birds. While it deals with the same basic subject matter, bird vocalizations, it does so from a different perspective. Singing Life deals with general, more technical topics, such as why birds sing, how they learn their songs, and regional variation. Birdsong is more personal, as the author peers into the lives of individual birds. But more than anything, it is about the sheer enjoyment of bird song.

This book consists of 24 mostly unrelated vignettes, organized by month. Each of them focuses on one particular individual or group of birds. There are two entries for the month of September, for example. In the first, the author spends an evening with a Wood Thrush before it goes to roost. The second is an exploration of the flight calls of nocturnal migrants. In each of these, Kroodsma is trying to answer a question for himself, attempting to get inside a bird’s head, or simply enjoying a soundscape.

Like Singing Life, two CD’s accompany this book so that the reader can listen along with the author. The main text will reference the CD tracks where appropriate, but there is an entire section that walks you through each track. The author even suggests that you start with this section and listen to the tracks before reading the accompanying chapters. I ended up either listening to the tracks as they were mentioned in the text, or reading an entire chapter first and then listening to all of the tracks. However, any order will work just fine. But there is no doubt that you will need to listen to these recordings to get the most out of this book.

And to help you get the most out of the soundtrack, sonagrams are included for selected tracks. Sonagrams are line graphs that “illustrate” sounds visually. They can be quite daunting at first if you’re not familiar with them. Never fear, though, a tutorial on how to “read” them is included in the introduction. Please, please read this section first if you need an introduction or refresher. These sonagrams are incredibly helpful when listening to the included bird sounds. Kroodsma will often single out something to listen for and points it out on the diagram. There were times when I would not have caught it audibly, but I could see it on the graph. The combination of the two can truly be a revelation.

You may think that you know some of your local birds very well, but you won’t be quite so sure after Kroodsma shows you the world of insight that he gains simply by really listening to birds. For instance, did you know that the White-eyed Vireo is more of a mimic than a mockingbird? I knew that they could mimic others, because they’ve fooled me with chickadee-like calls before. But with Kroodsma’s sonagrams and notes, you can definitely hear the mimicked portions of the songs. But I would not have noticed it live.

Kroodsma’s enthusiasm and excellent writing ensure that this book is never dull. He devotes an entire chapter to simply observing a Northern Mockingbird defend her winter territory one morning. Doesn’t sound all that interesting, does it? But he makes it come alive in such a manner that truly surprised me.

Recommendation

When birders hear a bird’s song or call, their first concern is identifying the species that made it. There’s nothing wrong with that, it is also what we do whenever we see a bird. And just as the plumages of some birds dazzle us, there are songs that leave us speechless. But if there is anything that I learned from Birdsong by the Seasons and The Singing Life of Birds, it’s that there is so much more that you can get out of birdsong. These two books will change the way you listen to birds.

It doesn’t matter which one you read first, just pick up the one that looks most interesting to you (I can almost guarantee you’ll want to read the other afterward). Then open your ears and mind to a whole new experience with birds.