At first glance, Know Your Bird Sounds: Common Western Species just looks like another of those nice little photo books that includes too few species to be really useful. The sense is that this one is just a little different because it includes recording. You frequently find these books at park visitor centers, hoping to tempt the casual nature observer with lovely photos. I think a lot of these books are just collections that a photographer wanted to share, and the selections are based on which pictures the photographer could obtain. Sometimes I imagine these are just the result of friends telling a photographer, “You should put those great photos into a book!” Books of this genre are pretty, yes, but not ones that birders are likely to pick up.
This book features 60 species, all shown an classic, sharp, close-up photos. It’s telling, however, that the photographer, Brian E. Small, isn’t even listed as an author. In truth, this publication is not a book. It’s an audio CD with a small book attached, the presence of the book probably an afterthought. To the credit of the authors and the publishers, the book is attractive, the pictures are great, and the brief information accompanying each photo is accurate and concise.
Now, to get to the heart of this project, listen to the CD. This is an audio tour of the western United States, moving from habitat to habitat and featuring some of the most characteristic bird sounds from each region. The recording quality is superb. Distracting human sounds are avoided, yet the clips include other natural sounds, ranging from background bird noise to the pounding of the surf. This adds welcome reality to the recordings. The clips are long, almost all over a minute in length, resulting in a very enjoyable audio tour that lasts over an hour. I think anyone who has spent time recording bird sounds will be completely delighted with the quality of sound captured by Kevin Colver. This is great work.
The narration, by Lang Elliott, is kept to a minimum, identifying habitats and the birds with just a modest amount of other information. Elliott, a celebrated collector of nature sounds himself, occasionally sounds like he’s talking to a kindergarten class (does it help to hear him say, “Ruddy Ducks may have been the inspiration for the character Daffy Duck,” or “Ever been on a Snipe hunt?”), but generally his narration is clear, concise, and useful without being obtrusive. You’ll probably recognize Elliott’s voice, as he has narrated a number of other recordings, including those in the Stokes series.
I love birding the American west, visiting the diverse habitats and experiencing many birds that aren’t part of the eastern avifauna. Pop this CD into the stereo on a chilly, winter night and it’s easy to imagine yourself out west, in spring or summer, surrounded by birds. Great fun. I almost wish there was no narration at all.
I do wonder how well this package will sell. Are there enough ornitho-audiophiles to buy the volume because the recordings are so good? Does the casual park visitor really want songs to go along with the picture book? Do birders ever want a guide, visual or audio, that isn’t complete? I doubt that I would have given this book a look or listened to the CD had it not come across my desk. But while the concept may have limited appeal, the product is certainly well done.
Colver, Kevin & Lang Elliott. Know Your Bird Sounds: Common Western Species. Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2008. 72 pages, 1 audio CD, $19.95 paper. ISBN-10: 0-8117-3446-3; ISBN-13: 978-0-8117-3446-2.