Challenge 22: Learn 3 birdsongs
Points available: 3
About the challenge
Bird song is a brilliant way to help you discover the wildlife all around you. It’s a real skill to develop and being able to tell one bird from another takes time and perseverance. But once you can begin to pick out the different songs you realise you are sharing the world with more wildlife than you thought.
To start with choose three birds that you regularly see and listen to their songs on the RSPB website.
Helpful tips
We all learn differently so try lots of different ideas to help you get the song fixed in your head.
Try and relate the sound to the size of the bird or the shape of its beak. Is the song fast or slow, does it have a flourish at the end, does it sound like something else?
For example the robin has a very musical song sung with its thin beak, the enthusiastic chaffinch descends a scale like a waterfall and ends with a churring flourish (which sounds like “I thankyou”), the blackbird whistles and the great tit sounds like a rusty spring.
More information
Create a playlist to test yourself until you are confident then go out on a walk to listen if you can hear your songs. Take binoculars to find your singers and see if they match with what you thought they were. Be patient. It can take a lot of practice to learn to recognise the birds from their song but it is well worth it.
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