Nature News from RSPB Scotland

How to Listen to Birds Episode 1

• RSPB Scotland

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How to Listen to Birds is a new podcast mini series from RSPB Scotland. Join host Stephen Magee out and about for tips on how to identify birds by their song. He'll also hear from RSPB staff about how the sounds birds make help us understand their lives better. And Stephen will try to understand what it is about birdsong that moves and enthrals us.

In Episode 1 we are at RSPB Scotland's Baron's Haugh reserve with warden David Anderson. He has tips on how to get started with birdsong. We encounter a tiny bird with a big song and David explains you don't need to go deep into the wild to enjoy the sound of birds.

LINKS
Birdsong Beginner video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-qJuNysUsU
David's work with blind and visually impaired people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfeXEmSgvgk
RSPB Web resources about birdsong and ID generally https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/a-z
Dan Chorus https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/news/the-dawn-chorus-all-you-need-to-know-about-natures-big-show

Stephen Magee:

Hello, I'm Stephen Magee and welcome to Nature News from RSPB Scotland and the first of our special series, how to Listen to Birds. Over the next few weeks, we'll have multiple episodes where we'll help you identify the birds you hear, but also give an insight into why they're singing and what it is that makes bird songs so important to us.

David Anderson:

It's incredible the range there is and you're always learning every single year and it's great fun. Some people would describe it as a laughing bandit. So it was ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha. I'll shoot you. It's definitely in their advantage to rise above the rest. They don't want to be a one trick pony.

Stephen Magee:

They've got a bigger back catalogue than Taylor Swift. This is how To Listen To Birds. This is how to listen to birds. Hello, it is just after seven in the morning and I am on the little bit disused railway path behind my house in Edinburgh which, despite it being right in the middle of a city, is still an amazing place to come in the morning at this time of year. It is currently late April and listen to birdsong.

Stephen Magee:

Now I've been feeling my way for a while with birdsong. I've always been interested in birds, ever since I was a kid, but really I mostly learnt about birds either through books or going out and looking at them, and birdsong was a total mystery to me. And then, when I started at the RSPB a few years ago, I started picking up tips from a lot of the people I was out filming with or doing other recording with, and I decided I was going to try and get to grips with birdsong and learn a bit more. So I did some videos called birdsong beginner, which I will stick in the show notes, which were me kind of just really beginning to get to grips with a few kind of basic birdsong things in my neighbourhood mostly. And this podcast is kind of a bit of a development of that. So over the next few weeks I am going to be going out with some of the amazing staff from RSPB Scotland and try and hear as many different birds in as many different places as I can and learn a bit about them along the way. So the aim would be like if birdsong is a total mystery for you, like, there'll definitely be some ID tips in there and some stuff about how to learn more common species. But if you're somebody who's already quite across birdsong or interested in it, we'll also be talking about why birds sing and also like why it is that birdsong is so important to us and gives us so much joy.

Stephen Magee:

Anyway, for episode one, I have been to Baron's Haugh, which is an amazing reserve, and I met up with David Anderson who's the warden there. Now he does guided birdsong walks in the reserve. He also does a lot of work in the community on birdsong. He knows a ton about it and he's also really good at explaining it. So great place to start. Hello, it is April. We are at Barons Haw. It's a brilliant nature reserve on the outskirts of Motherwell and I'm with David who looks after this place. Hello David, hi Stephen, how are you doing? I am very well. I mean, this is a great reserve right, because it's like there's folk walking their dogs there's. Motherwell is like literally, you know, five, ten minutes walk up that way, like the outskirts of it, it's super accessible, but it's got wetland, it's got woodland, a little bit of everything.

David Anderson:

Absolutely has everything. That's why it's such a special place, because a lot of the people in Motherwell can just walk out their door, wander down the street in five minutes and suddenly you're in amazing woodland with birds singing. You pop down and see fantastic wetland birds and some beautiful meadow habitats. It's got everything here, yeah.

Stephen Magee:

Well, today it's all about birdsong, so what I want to try and show off to people is that it doesn't take like a massive trip to the middle of nowhere to be able to hear some birds.

David Anderson:

Absolutely, you can do it out in your back garden even if you want, but certainly if you're in central Scotland, any little patch of woodland that you've got near you, any sort of any little bits of trees and things like that, you can go out and hear all sorts of birds and it's a it's a fantastic thing to do at this time of year. Really makes you feel a bit better after the cold, long winter we've had Right all we need now is actual birds to cooperate. Yes, let's hope they do that.

Stephen Magee:

I want to say like laser gun, like super loud, right, what was that?

David Anderson:

well, that was a wren singing. So it's actually an amazing song because it really is one of our smallest birds we get in this country. But it has one of the most explosive songs and I think your description of laser guns is quite good. I always describe it as a machine gun. So you have this little song and suddenly right in the middle of this little trailing and it just explodes out of a bush or a tree or something and it's just suddenly filling the air around you. It's a really amazing song that we've got for such a little bird.

Stephen Magee:

For people who don't know, a wren is a really small bird, like really really small. I mean it's only really like goldcrest and firecrest and stuff that are smaller in the UK, right. So it's like almost the UK's smallest bird, right. Little little guy like that weird little flippy cocktail, right, and like they'll be singing, like they won't be high up in trees, they'll be like normally, they'll be like somewhere down in the undergrowth Just making. There's something really weird about the inverse relationship right Between the size of the bird and the sound it makes.

David Anderson:

It's amazing. Whenever I'm doing guided walks and talking about the wren, I always like say look out for this singing bush, cause quite often they're just in the undergrowth and this little tiny bird you can't see, and then suddenly there's bang, bang, bang bang sound coming out of the bush. There and it is quite amazing. As you say, there's only a couple of birds we find that are actually smaller than a wren, and to have such a bloody, explosive song coming out from that bird you often can't see is, yeah, quite amazing.

Stephen Magee:

You see, in the inverse relationship, yeah, but I think, if you're thinking about it from the perspective of somebody who's trying to get into birdsong, like Wren is a really good one to learn as one of your first few right because? A because you will hear it a lot of places, but also because, like well, you're not going to miss it, because it's loud.

David Anderson:

It's a great one to start with, actually, as you say, because you hear it all over the place. It's a fantastic one to start with because you're going to hear it in your local woods, you're going to hear it in your garden, you're going to hear it in your local woods, you're going to hear it in your garden, you're going to hear it just walking about the streets and other people's gardens. And it is also so loud and it's got these very distinctive phrases in it that means it will stick in your head a little bit easier. So you get that one down and it's a great place to start if you're tree.

Stephen Magee:

There was a word bouncing around right and it was doing kind of like a single note, but then I think I did pick up the same bird earlier on in the day just before I met you right, and it's nuthatch. And when I was a kid in Scotland like seeing a nuthatch was like a really big deal and now like in an ordinary bit of woodland like this I don't mean to do it down, but you know what I mean. You will hear that right. It's a much more present sound than it was in the past in.

David Anderson:

Scotland. Absolutely. It's amazing how you walk through almost any wood in central Scotland. You've got a really good chance of hearing a nuthatch. Baron's Haugh fact, was probably one of the first kind of best places. Maybe 10, 15 years ago you started hearing more and more nuthatches, so much so, in fact, that we've got big paintings of nuthatches that are around our car park and it's a fantastic sound. You hear that kind of I bubbly, kind of chirpy call that you hear as you're walking through the woods and it's a really distinctive sound.

Stephen Magee:

It's in the background now, right, there's something about it to me. That's like it's going, like it's going past. It's going like it's going past you. You know, it's like like ee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, like that. You know it's like it's got, like it's like it's going wee. You know what I mean.

David Anderson:

It's quite. I mean, it's a very distinctive bird in terms of its behaviour as well. So, yeah, you hear, you can link its call and song to its behaviour as well, and it gives you a real kind of holistic feel of the bird as well, which is brilliant.

Stephen Magee:

So this is one of the challenges right of starting out with birdsong there's a lot of stuff all singing at once, right, but one of the things that's really cut through is chaffage, right, so describe chaffage for people how would you normally?

David Anderson:

communicate that. So if I was describing a chaffinch song and probably Whenever I say anything like describing it, it's always very personal, you're always going to make up your own kind of ways of describing them. But for me it's a descending course. It's almost like a waterfall, you think, the water coming down with a little flourish at the end. Now I like to swim like that because that helps it link it into other birdsong. Because you know one suckbird song, you can start hearing a different song. So, for example, willow Warbler that same kind of waterfall, but without a little flourish at the end.

David Anderson:

So that was that was a Willow Warbler through there, so there were chaffinches down there and that was the Willow Warbler, you're right.

Stephen Magee:

So the Willow Warbler, that's the Willow Warbler, right. I also think it's a bit more musical maybe than the chaffinch, you know. It's more liquid because it's a warbler, you know. So it's a warbler, so it's a little bit, you know, smoother and a bit maybe a little bit fancier.

Stephen Magee:

The Chaffinch people have said to me about the Chaffinch before is like falling down the stairs, right, you know that are going to do, do, do, do, do, and then at the bottom you kind of bounce a bit, you know, but it's just a constant. I mean you're never done with that, right? I mean these are two relatively common ones that somebody like you, who's doing this a lot, would learn early. But I mean, presumably you're always learning.

David Anderson:

You're always learning and one of the first things I would always say to anyone trying to learn a bird song is don't stop enjoying it, because, first of of all, come down and listen to it, because it's a beautiful array of songs, different sounds, different tones. It's absolutely wonderful just to sit and listen. But yes, then when you start to hear different songs, you then start to learn different songs and you start to identify different birds just through their song, and there's always more songs to learn. I mean, I don't know half the bird song that some of my colleagues know. It's incredible the range there is and you're always learning every single year and it's great fun.

Stephen Magee:

And there's always a rain somewhere and actually a digger, I think. As well, you know.

David Anderson:

But that's always a big issue as well.

Stephen Magee:

So, being honest, right, I have always kind of struggled a bit with bird songs. So the way I learned birds when I was a kid was nobody else in my family was really all that interested in birds. So I got books out of the library and you could look at, like you could look at all the pictures of the birds and then you would like sometimes you get over excited and you'll be like I've seen a blue throat in the park, right? You haven't seen a blue throat in the park, right? You're just getting over. You know you're just seven and like trying too hard, right. But basically learned visually and kind of ignored song a lot.

Stephen Magee:

And since I started at RSPB I've been trying to learn and it's been not straightforward by any means, but I'm really lucky. I've got people like you and loads of other people that I go and meet on reserves when I'm filming or recording or whatever and they help me out with stuff and I've gradually been building it up right. But I want you to try and imagine yourself as, like you know, me, you know a couple of years ago or somebody who's listening to this, who's kind of intimidated by starting, because starting's hard with something as big as learning a whole new thing like the sound of birds, right? How do you start at the most simplest level?

David Anderson:

I can remember very clearly when I started learning birdsong, because actually when I got my first job in the RCB and I panicked and thought, oh my God, I can identify a few birds, but I know no songs at all, and it's a scary thought with all the variety of songs and birds you get. So how I started was I picked one or two birds that someone had told me about before and told me what they sound like, and concentrated on those.

David Anderson:

So the one I picked was a great tip because someone told me about the teacher, teacher song teacher and I listened to that and I heard it again and again and again and slowly but surely it went into my head.

David Anderson:

An amazing thing was, once I had that song in my head, I then started hearing the songs I didn't know. So it was like a basis of going right, there's one and now I can hear another one I don't know and then you can move on to that one. So by knowing just a few songs, it gives you a basis from which to start hearing the other things around you. The most important thing I did was start making up ways of describing them to myself. So one of the next songs I learned was a blue tit, because a blue tit sounds like Beethoven's first symphony, and that stuck in my head and gradually, slowly but surely, built up these different things in my head. That helped me identify them. And even if you know three, four, five bird songs, you probably know more than everybody you know, and that is a fantastic thing to have.

Stephen Magee:

And you know we should say as well, there's, you know there's lots of things like apps and stuff like that. I'll put some of the show notes, different things that people can try, that can help them with it, you know, but nothing beats just going out and listening, right? I suppose one of the other challenges is if you, if you see a bird and you're trying to describe it to somebody, like our visual language around birds, you know, you, after a little while, if you get interested in birds or anything else, you get a sense of what the important like parameters are. Is it big, is it it small? Is it in the water? Is it in a wood? Has it got a big, long beak? Has it got a little short beak? Has it got long legs? Is it soaring? Is it flapping really hard?

Stephen Magee:

All these kind of things that help you build gradually, narrow things down, because if you just pull a bird book out of the shelf and say I've seen a bird, which one of these 350 birds is it right? What are your chances of hanging out? Is there a similar? Are there similar things with sound? Do you think are there elements that you're listening for that would help you navigate your way through with a new bird or birds you're uncertain about.

David Anderson:

Yes, I think they are.

David Anderson:

I mean, first of all, the things you do when you identify the birds. You're also doing it with song as well, because you have to think about where you are. So you're thinking about the kind of song you might be hearing. So you're going to hear different songs in a wetland and you're going to hear it in a woodland as well, and then all the birds have very different songs, but they also have different tones, different pitches of singing. So you can start to go into that and see if it's a high-pitched song, if it's a low-pitched song, if it's a flutie song, so they're all different ways of singing as well. So really a bit of a detective building up these different clues about where, what habitats you're seeing, what birds you might expect to see, and maybe listen to a couple of songs before you go out, and suddenly you can start to build up that picture of what you're hearing and there is an amazing function on our website right where we've got like little song fragments and stuff for for lots of different species and that can really help.

Stephen Magee:

But I think the other thing I would say to people you know, this is my experience of trying with birdsong or try to learn as I go along is that it has enormously enhanced just my experience of just being out, because it's just a new set of I'm not just looking out for things, I'm now listening out for things as well and picking up a whole dimension of being out that otherwise I'd be missing it completely adds something to it, doesn't it?

David Anderson:

I mean, when you're going out, there's a whole kind of mindful aspect to it, because, as well as just focusing on what you're seeing and what you're watching, suddenly you're listening as well. So all your senses are kind of much more attuned to the habitat, the environment that you're in, and it gives you a much more kind of deeper connection almost with where you are, which I think is a really lovely thing about listening to birdsong. So, yeah, it's great. Have you been out there trying to spot that small flash of yellow in the morning to see what kind it is? But if you're hearing the song as well, it just gives a a different perspective and a really a really more kind of whole way of being.

David Anderson:

It's a complete experience yeah, complete experience exactly is what what it gives you, and I think that's a really positive part of it and, crucially, birds are navigating their way by sound as well as other things, so you're being a bit more like a bird. Exactly that's where you want to put it. Definitely Be more bird.

Stephen Magee:

Thanks to David for doing that. It is always good to be more bird and he was very patient and very helpful. I'll put links into the show notes for our website where there are some brilliant resources on bird song that can help you develop your understanding of bird song, id and other stuff. I'll also put in a link for a previous episode of the podcast where david was working with blind and visually impaired people in glasgow on birdsong, which is like a really interesting listen and a reflection of like some of the amazing work that people like david do. I'll be back with another episode of how to listen to birds next week. In the meantime, if you enjoyed, please do leave us a review and subscribe. It helps people find us in the podcast jungle and tell a friend. But until next time, goodbye and thanks for listening.