Birding by Ear

By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo

There’s a certain lonesomeness that accompanies time in nature, which birding eliminates. It also affords a rare opportunity to glimpse into a secret natural world and observe a multitude of species. It is no surprise that birders are everywhere, especially this time of year.

On a recent birding outing at Haystack State Park with two of Norfolk’s great bird enthusiasts, Susannah Wood and Betsy Gill, the birding was “as good as it gets” according to Wood.

We started down at the lower meadow near the entrance to the park on a fairly chilly morning. My inexperienced ear was only able to pick out the call of a crow and a woodpecker. Wood began making a low, “pshhh, pshhh, pshhh” sound and, in less than a minute, a common yellowthroat flew within a stone’s throw of where we stood. Wood explained that this type of warbler is territorial, aggressive and prefers shrubby habitat; therefore, it’s easy to call in.

I tried to focus on sound alone as we stood in the meadow, but was distracted by the visual appeal of the setting in the dazzling morning light. I asked Wood what all she was hearing, and without a moment’s hesitation she rattled off four different species: the common yellowthroat, ovenbird, red-eyed Vireo and the woodpecker.

Wood’s interest in birding wasn’t initiated until she was a college student. She took a field ornithology course at the University of Wisconsin which included a middle-of-the-night trek with her zany professor and a Department of Fish & Wildlife guide to a bunker close to a popular breeding ground for prairie chickens. At dawn, Wood recalls watching their mating rituals, which included inflated throat pouches and the most amazing cacophony of noises. That experience led in part to Wood’s passion for birding.

We moved up to the big pond at the bend in the road where we heard another ovenbird (named for their beehive-oven-like nests they build on the forest floor), and a black-and-white warbler. At this point, Wood got out her iPhone and showed me the Birdtunes application, which plays a multitude of bird songs. “It’s kind of distracting [the app], because you’re looking down instead of up, but it’s a great way to confirm what you’re hearing out here,” Wood said.

For those thinking they can simply arm them self with an iPhone and set out to bird by ear, be warned em dash it’s not so easy. Wood clearly has a superior auditory aptitude that allows her to zero in on the multitude of songs in the forest. Even after hearing the black-and-white’s song by the pond, immediately followed by a recording of it on Wood’s iPhone, I probably couldn’t have confirmed they were the same song. Birding by ear takes a lot of practice. Wood recommends Peterson Field Guide’s “Birding by Ear” CD, which bands families of songs together rather than just listing the songs bird-by-bird like the iPhone app.

Working our way to the upper parking lot, we stopped at the picnic benches where we saw another ovenbird and yellowthroat, and watched three veeries together on one branch engaged in some sort of mating or territory display. Then we heard the flute-like song of the wood thrush (easily decipherable, according to Wood, from the hermit thrush, which changes the pitch of its phrases). We saw a chestnut-sided warbler with its bright yellow head, a flycatcher and, oh-so-luckily, Wood’s favorite bird em dash the magnificent Blackburnian warbler with its brilliant orange throat.

Wood’s mother, Barbara Lawrence, always said, “If you see one great bird [during a birding outing], that’s enough.” The Blackburnian was certainly it.

Before leaving, Wood suggested we revisit the meadow at the bottom of the park since it had warmed up considerably in the hour since we started out. It was pretty quiet at first, and then a glorious Baltimore oriole flew across the field and came to rest in a treetop close to us. As if that wasn’t enough, Gill then spotted a male and female scarlet tanager.

After Wood and Gill left, I made another trip up Haystack to test my new knowledge. While Wood’s and Gill’s descriptions of birdsongs were highly descriptive – “a little liquid-y dropping sound,” “a rusty hinge noise,” “witchedy witchedy witchedy” and “Virginia Virginia Virginia,” – the hell if I could identify a single bird by ear, but my eyes stayed upward the whole time. I noticed a lot more birds in the trees than I would have the day before, like I had just been let in on one of nature’s great secrets, and I certainly did not feel alone.