I started recording bird song, and other vocalizations, in May of 2024. But funnily enough, I didn’t really get into it properly until a bit later, preferring the camera over the microphone. This had a lot to do with the fact that, recording bird song has its fair share of frustration involved in it, and I used to let the frustration get to me too easily. That all changed when I spent Christmas 2024 near Courtmacsherry, and got to hear and record things like this:
The song of the curlew, recorded during that holiday at Christmas. I find many bird vocalizations to be absolutely beautiful, but it’s the song of the curlew that brings me closest to tears of joy. And it was the curlew that made me realize that I didn’t just want to be a bird recorder some of the time, but rather I wanted to be a fanatical bird recorder. I now have 1735 recordings of birds, and that’s just recordings that I have “gotten around to”. I have many more that I have not yet had a chance to listen to, because I typically come home with twenty, thirty, forty or more recordings, and all that recording might leave me too tired to even listen to most of them, sometimes I’ll only have the energy to listen to about two. And it’s like that every day, it’s rare that I get a chance to listen to all of them, so there’s a massive backlog. Though the nice thing about that is that I can still do birding even on rainy days. I’m usually too nervous to do my birding when it’s raining, it’s the fear that rain water will get into my recorder, my camera, or my phone (I use the phone for taking notes). So on a rainy day, I can stay snug and cozy inside, but can still have a birding session, going through old recordings that would have otherwise never seen the light of day. Indeed, it was during one of these rainy day birding sessions that I realized I had, unknowingly, got a recording I was absolutely mad to get, the sound of a great northern diver.:
https://xeno-canto.org/1054676
You’ll hear it for just a second, before the sound of jackdaws. The eerie cry of the great northern diver.
Why Bird Recording?
I’m actually somewhat surprised that bird recording hasn’t taken off more since an innovator in the field, Seán Ronayne, rose to fame by telling the world about his love of birds and why we must protect them from extinction. When I’m out and about exploring bird life, I’ll have my camera around my neck and my Tascam recorder in my coat pocket. But while among other birders I’ll quite often see a dizzying array of wonderful cameras, binoculars and telescopes, I have yet to see a single microphone. I think this is somewhat understandable, if you’re in an urban area surrounded by the heavy roar of car engines, if a robin comes your way, you can still get beautiful photos of the bird, despite the anthropogenic chaos all around you. But sadly, what you can’t do is record the bird. So, it’s understandable that many people who are already all about viewing the birds with binoculars or telescope, or are all about saving those beautiful memories with a camera, just find bird recording to be just too much trouble. And I was almost like that myself, if I hadn’t spent a Winter surrounded by curlews singing, I could have easily thought, what’s the point, every recording is just going to be ruined by a van rushing past at the most inopportune moment. And plenty of my recordings have been ruined that way. But, it’s still worth it, it’s not all frustration, it’s not all someone starting their lawnmower at exactly the same moment the robin starts singing, and, the moments where it goes right, when the sound of road vehicles is absent, when the anthropegenic noise in our world takes a holiday, are moments I will treasure for the rest of my life.
So, first before we even get into the recording aspect, why listen? Well, firstly, because it will help your visual observations of birds. Want to see a song thrush? They’ve got a loud enough song, learn to recognize their song and you’ll know how to find them, to view with a camera or to take a photograph of. I love goldcrests and long-tailed tits, and while I am trying to get better at recognizing their vocalizations in an end in itself, it’s also because I’d like to see more of these wonderful birds.
So that’s part of it, you want to find your favourite bird, even if it’s because you think they’ve beautiful plumage, or because you’re hoping to watch them taking off and flying, learning their vocalizations will help a lot. It also works the other way, despite my work on trying to get better at recognizing vocalizations, I’m still a much better visual identifier, and I learned a lot of bird songs by simply finding the bird by recognizing their plumage first, and then listening to them.
But there’s a deeper reason to listen to birds than just because it’ll help you to see them. Imagine aliens landed on Earth that were only interested in studying humans visually, and never any of the sounds we make. They are only interested in what we look like, and our buildings, and our works of art. But never any thing we’ve produced through audio. These aliens will never experience the wailing guitar of Hendrix, the soothing vocal tones of Karen Carpenter, or the sweet but powerful tones of Davy Spillane and his uilleann pipes. Frankly, the aliens who are only interested in the visual footprint of humans, are missing a lot.
The vocalizations of birds are a very important window into their world. This is the alarm call of a redshank:
https://xeno-canto.org/1072973
A lot of birds like to warn all the other birds in the area that a peregrine falcon or a sparrowhawk has arrived. Regardless of whether or not there’s any altruism involved in it, there’s definitely a pragmatic self interested reason for it. If all of the birds take off together, there’s a good chance that a bird of prey will pick one of the other birds for a meal instead.
This is the song of a robin:
https://xeno-canto.org/1046411
Isn’t that beautiful. Perhaps a female robin will be swept off her feet by this beautiful enchanting song! Guess again. Given the time of year of this, October, my best guess would be that this is the robin’s territorial song. So in terms of the intentionality behind it, don’t think beautiful lullaby, but rather think, war song. If you were to replicate the intention behind it with human instruments, think Scottish Highland bagpipes and war drums. I often think robin song sounds similar to a baby laughing, it’s such a sweet sound! Sweet sounding it may be, but the robin isn’t telling other robins that they want to be friends with them. The robin is telling the other robins, I’m extremely tough, I’m capable of defending myself, if you trespass on my territory, there’ll be trouble!
While male robins sing to attract female robins and as a way of declaring and defending their territory, female robins sing exclusively to defend their territory. This robin we just heard could have been either male or female.
Birds are avian dinosaurs. And something about the call of a heron just reminds me of their dinosaur origin. Now, obviously I’ve no way of knowing what the world, or its animals, sounded like in the time of the dinosaurs, but something about a heron’s call always sounds very prehistoric and ancient to me. This is the flight call of a heron, that I got just yesterday:
https://xeno-canto.org/1076650
Over the sweet territorial aggression song of the robin (although Spring is here so could it be a courtship song) you’ll hear the flight call of a heron. There were three herons in flight at the time. And this is the most vocal I’ve ever heard them. It’s harder to get recordings of them than it is to get recordings of mute swans, and given the name of the swan, that’s saying something!
So, I hope I’ve convinced you that there is a wonderful world to be found if we listen to the birds around us. Now that I’ve convinced you of that, why record? Well, firstly, because recording doesn’t conflict with just “enjoying the moment” the way photography does. Sometimes I see a blue tit or a long-tailed tit flying from tree branch to tree branch, and I deliberately don’t go for the camera. There is every chance I will frustrate myself by trying and failing to get a good photo, when I could just, enjoy the moment. With recording, you can do both. Close your eyes, and just stand there, listening to that blackbird singing. Just remember to hit record before you do. So now you got to enjoy the moment without thinking about the minutiae of capturing it, and also, as an added bonus, you have a recording!
I also feel that recording is vital for learning bird songs and vocalizations. Once you’ve got that recording, you can take it home, and play it to others, with much more expertise than yourself, who can listen to the recording and tell you if you’ve finally heard that black tailed godwit you were hoping to hear. In the world of birding I am forever grateful to the many experts who have given their time so generously to help me with identifying birds I have encountered, and for this, recording the birds is absolutely vital.
Another reason to record is, I get to listen to Summer birds in the Winter, and Winter birds in the Summer, because I have recordings of them. This Winter I was never far from the beautiful song of blackbirds, because I recorded them during the Summer. It can be a time of sadness when your favourite bird stops singing for the Winter, or when the wigeons and teals leave us for the Summer, but at least with recordings, you’ll always be able to hear them.
Getting Started
The good news is, it may be possible to get started at bird recording without spending a penny. I started with my phone. Your phone’s probably got a microphone that can be used for recording birds, so that’s how you make your start!
I’d actually recommend starting with your phone, as opposed to spending any money on a “proper” recording device right away. The reason for this is that spending a bit of time doing phone recordings gives you time to think about what you want out of a recording device. Is there something that frustrates you about using your phone? Then you know to buy a recorder that doesn’t have that problem. And if the phone suits you fine, no problem! While I love my Tascam recorder, some of my favourite recordings were actually done on the phone, like the curlew recording at the start of this blogpost. So now you know how to start recording, how do you know what you’re hearing? A good place to start with that, is to get the Merlin App:
https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
If a bird is singing, the Merlin app can analyze the song and tell you what it is. However, a word of caution on the Merlin app. While it’s a very sophisticated app, it should never be used as the final arbiter of what a bird is. Think of it more as a useful advisor. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, sometimes it gets it completely wrong. I’ll never forget the time I could see clearly that there was a blackbird in front of me, and the Merlin app was telling me it’s a song thrush. Secondly, the Merlin app can sometimes be correct, but in a way that is confusing. Let me explain. Suppose there is a mystery bird singing, and the Merlin app has no idea what it is. It gives you no answer, understandably, because it doesn’t know. But then all of a sudden, a robin makes a barely audible ticking noise. You don’t hear it, but the Merlin app does, and the answer that comes on your screen is robin. So now you think the mystery bird is a robin, but it’s not. The app just didn’t know what the mystery bird was, but did know what the robin was, the robin that you didn’t even hear.
So, this is how I use the Merlin app. Let’s say I’m almost certain I’m hearing a sparrow, but there’s some point of ambiguity, maybe this sparrow sounds slightly different, and I need to go that final step from 95% sure to 100%. I’ll use Merlin to bridge that uncertainty. Let’s say I have no clue. I’ll use Merlin for that as well, but I’ll treat Merlin’s answer as hypothesis, not fact. So, if Merlin tells me I’ve got a mistle thrush, I won’t take that as fact, but I will go home and listen to recordings of mistle thrushes and see if Merlin’s answer was in any way plausible or was a mistake. Treat Merlin as a useful, but fallible tool, and you can’t go wrong. Treat it as omniscient, and I do believe you will impede your ability to learn the vocalizations of birds.
Your next step should be to get on Xeno Canto:
Any bird mysteries can be uploaded to Xeno Canto. In addition to the fact that Xeno Canto also has a program for identifying birds, called Avesecho, there are many experienced birders on Xeno Canto who will usually be more than happy to help you with identifying any mystery birds you have encountered.
The next step I think would be, if you have a laptop or computer, download a free recording software called Audacity (if you have a phone but not a laptop, there are recording apps for phones, but I don’t know what these are like because I still do all the “complicated” stuff on a laptop.) Audacity is a very simple to use recording software. It can’t do anything fancy, like Ableton or Cubase, but that’s what you want. Remember, you’re a birder, not a record producer. Your job is to manipulate that recording as LITTLE as possible, to preserve the true sound of the bird.
Indeed, if there is no editing required whatsoever, then I’m happy. But sometimes what’ll happen, is that I’ll have a beautiful recording of a song thrush, and a very loud car will pass at a very inopportune time. Now, there is an argument for leaving in the background noise, as a reflection of the fact that birds do have to live alongside loud human machinery, however, sometimes a passing car can be so loud that you can’t hear the bird at all during that moment, and if you’ve cranked the volume so that you can hear the bird clearly, well, when the car passes it’s just going to take your ears off. So in that instance what I do is I go into audacity, and chop out the sound of the car, meaning myself and others can enjoy the sound of the song thrush without getting tinnitus!
Some good “starter” birds
Before I say any more, I should say these examples may not translate to other countries. I’ve lived in Ireland my whole life and have never done any birding overseas. These examples should translate well to Britain, given the similar climate and types of birds, and to parts of Europe, but beyond that, I honestly don’t know. These are examples of birds who’s sound is easy to recognize. You probably know a few of them already!
Robin:
https://xeno-canto.org/1047287
This may surprise you, but before I started birding, I didn’t even recognize a robin’s song. Sure, I knew this sound, and recognized it as a beautiful sound, but I didn’t realize that this was what robins sounded like. So if you recognize this as a robin, you’re already far ahead of where I was when I started!
Blackbird:
https://xeno-canto.org/1005029
I remember not being able to tell blackbirds and robins apart. Which might seem strange, given the fact that I can clearly tell now that they have nothing in common in terms of their song, it’s just that they both give me a similar feeling of joy. Blackbirds are a good starter bird for three reasons, they sound lovely, they’re easy to recognize, and, keep listening and recording, and mimicry is fairly easy to spot in their song. Listen to this:
https://xeno-canto.org/1053640
You heard right, that was a blackbird imitating an alarm! I don’t know what it is, but blackbirds love imitating alarms. Listen to them long enough, and you’ll eventually hear your first example of mimicry!
Wood Pigeon:
https://xeno-canto.org/1063190
The baritone of the woods. Wood Pigeons have a warm and joyful tone that’s a lot closer to the bass register than a lot of other birds.
Chaffinch:
Unlike the first three examples, this is one you might not already recognize. But I decided to include it because for me at least, this was a very once you know it, you know it, type sound. I went from not knowing the sound of a chaffinch at all, to recognizing it extremely well, in a very short time, because it’s got an unmistakably “weird” sound, and now the song of a chaffinch jumps out at me instantly whenever I hear it. I think when starting a new hobby or interest, early “wins” are essential for boosting your confidence, so why not get that early win and get to know the beautiful but so easy to recognize song of a chaffinch?
What Are Some Good Birding Sites?
So, now that perhaps you’ve downloaded Merlin and Audacity, and you’re anxious to get out and hear, and record some birds, where should you go? The answer to this is going to be surprisingly complicated. I mean, the simple answer is, anywhere. Walk 50 meters down the road and you’ll see at least one bird, and probably several. So the answer to the question “Where are some birds?” is “Look outside the window”. But the answer to the question, “What are some good birding sites, with a high variety of interesting birds, and very limited noise pollution?” is going to be harder to answer.
Firstly, what I said about the “beginner” birds, goes doubly for this topic. That is, I am only able to really talk about good birding sites in Cork and the surrounding area, and I can’t say with certainty what I’m saying can even be generalized to Britain, or even to Ireland as a whole. That is because Ireland, and definitely Cork, are on the whole, not great for birds. That’s not to say you won’t be able to get great bird recordings in Cork, you can, and I’ve done it. But what I am saying is that noise pollution is a serious problem in Cork, even when you head out to the country, so, getting bird recordings won’t always be easy. And luck has a big part to do with it. For example, Fitzgerald’s Park is a beautiful park it Cork City, but not a quiet one. Normally I would say don’t even bother going to Fitzgerald’s Park to do bird recordings, and yet to my surprise, I was able to get a nice blue tit recording there a few days ago. Likewise, Cork is full of a weird and dizzying array of loud machinery, so even if you’ve come to the conclusion that a certain area is reliably quiet, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the sound of a lawnmower, a hedge trimmer, or who knows what else, will all of a sudden mean you’ve to take your trusty bird recorder somewhere else. So, here are some types of location I’m going to suggest, this will involve taking into account noise pollution, and bird variety.
Sitka Spruce Cash Crop Plantations (Let me explain!)
I almost feel dirty recommending these horrific eyesores where nature itself comes to die. I’ve actually covered my opinions on such places in depth here if you’re interested:
Sitka Spruce plantations offer one thing, and one thing only, a near absence of anthropogenic noise (unless Coilte is doing work there.) But usually, especially if you can find a big plantation, these places are super quiet. This is because the Irish government, and previous governments, only care about trees as profit, so “cash crop” forests are always going to be bigger than real forests. Meaning if you go into the center of a cash crop forest, you’ll be well protected from road noise, while, real, proper woodlands are so small that you’re never likely to be fifty meters or so from a busy road. Because these are places that are frankly, not very nice places for birds, you won’t find a great variety of birds there, but the ones you DO find there, you’ll be able to hear, and record, without the constant fear of loud traffic drowning out their song. Here are some recordings I got in Bottlehill Forest, a Coilte Plantation where I go for shelter from anthropogenic noise and for bird recording:
A Wren:
A Coal Tit (granted there’s a bit of “me” noise here, more on that later, but the main sound in the background is the wind):
https://xeno-canto.org/1075985
Two Chaffinches:
https://xeno-canto.org/1001086
So in the spirit of “beggars can’t be choosers” do get out to your local cash crop monument to greed being more important than nature. Even common birds like blackbirds won’t show up there, but the birds that are there, you will hear them properly.
Estuaries
Estuaries attract a great amount of waders because when the tide goes out the birds can find food beneath the muddy sand. These are wonderful places, when I’m near an estuary with the tide out, I often feel like I’ve stepped into a dream. Problem is, they are quite often near busy roads. Here’s some of my Courtmacsherry Estuary recordings.
Oystercatcher:
https://xeno-canto.org/1029940
Whimbrel:
https://xeno-canto.org/1049372
Redshank:
https://xeno-canto.org/1053299
The Coast
In terms of noise pollution, coastal areas are some of the best places I typically encounter. A long beach tends to be great, because often times people in swimming tend to go to the side of the beach with the warmest water, leaving the other side of the beach fairly quiet. A lot of fields next to the ocean, atop high cliffs, tend to be very quiet, leading to great opportunities for bird recording. (With the obvious caveat, I can’t guarantee a farmer is going to be happy about you walking through their field, so always try to find out if you’re likely to be welcome there beforehand.) Here are some of my coastal recordings:
Oystercatchers, Broad Strand:
https://xeno-canto.org/1073336
Curlew, Broadstrand, one of my favourite recordings:
https://xeno-canto.org/1035204
Raven, Coolim Cliffs, also one of my favourite recordings:
https://xeno-canto.org/1032861
Narrow Country Roads
In my experience wide country roads tend to be as busy as suburban country roads. On a good day you can “chance” them, but usually that’s a fools errand. That “one off” car, will be followed by four more. So a good place in the country I find is those narrow country roads, obviously built in the days when most people got around on horse and cart. Usually, these roads have a very small amount of traffic, roads that size aren’t going to accommodate a high volume of cars, and this can lead to some great recording opportunities. Here are some of my recordings from some narrow country roads:
Blue Tit: (Granted, this did have to be edited for road noise, but nevertheless, I was able to get a recording of the blue tits over sixteen minutes long, in two parts.):
https://xeno-canto.org/1002933
https://xeno-canto.org/1002934
A Buzzard:
https://xeno-canto.org/1052366
Starlings: (Also had to edit this, these small roads aren’t necessarily quiet, they’re just quiet by comparison to others roads):
https://xeno-canto.org/1039911
Nature Reserves:
I’ve only ever been to one nature reserve, and that’s Harper’s Island. Unfortunately, it’s near a busy road, but one of its biggest advantages for recording is that its got hides, small huts where you can watch the birds. These mean the birds get closer to you then they otherwise would, and it also means your recording device and phone and any other electronics you need are safe from water damage if it starts raining. Here are some of my Harper’s Island recordings:
A Redshank:
https://xeno-canto.org/1048003
Curlews:
https://xeno-canto.org/1068687
Shelduck:
https://xeno-canto.org/1068992
I’ve also written about Harper’s Island here:
Some Final Thoughts Before You Get Out There
So I hope I’ve given you a few pointers that’ll allow you to go out and get your first bird recordings. But there’s still a few things to remember, and how I know that is because I need to learn to remember them myself.
If You Can, Try To Get Good At Being Quiet.
I don’t know if this is a me thing or if it’s an issue that affects other people too, but I still haven’t mastered the basic art of staying quiet. I’m not talking about the fact that I have no indoor voice, though I don’t have an indoor voice, it’s the fact that I’m constantly making these, mini-noises if you want to call them that, they don’t seem that loud until I listen back to my recordings later.
For example, even if I’m just “standing still” I’m continuously trying to figure out a more comfortable position to stand in. So I’ll move my foot slightly, I’ll move my shoulder a bit, and all of this will seem completely silent. But, when I listen to the recording, I’ll realize the slight movement I made because my backpack was digging into me a bit, sounds like an absolute cacophony on the recording. I also breathe very loudly, partly due to my hayfever acting up, so sometimes when I get the recording back, it’ll sound like I’ve run a marathon and am gasping for breath.
This one’s hard to master, and I don’t know if I’ll ever master if myself, but, if it all possible, try to get good at being as quiet as possible.
Learn To Manage Frustration and Disappointment
This one is tough, and not one I’m good at myself. Even without getting into the noise pollution aspect of it, you’ll still have frustrating experiences. Just yesterday I missed a chance to get a recording of a mute swan doing the snarling sound they make, when they want a human or other animal to frankly, piss off. A dog approached the swan, and the swan snarled. I cursed myself for not having the foresight to turn on the Tascam. Then, the dog came back again, and the swan snarled again. I cursed my poor judgement for not realizing the dog would return. Then, the dog returned, again, and the swan snarled again. It simply, did not occur to me that the dog would continue returning, I didn’t think the dog would be brave enough to keep returning after the swan repeatedly told them to get lost. So I missed my chance to get a recording of a swan’s snarl, three times in a row!
But there’s worse than that, that I don’t deal with very well. It’s that, humanity has collectively built a world, where there is practically no escape from noise pollution. It seems, there is always a car, there is always a lawnmower, there is always a motorbike, there is always music blaring at an antisocial volume. Two days ago, I was recording a song thrush, and about a minute or so in, some loud machinery started up nearby. I admit I felt close to tears. Not because of that one incident, but because of EVERY incident where that happens.
But, it’s worth pushing through that frustration and disappointment. Because there are still little pockets of silence in our world, away from the sound of loud engines and blaring music, where you can hear the most wonderful bird song. I’ll leave you with two of my favourite recordings to help motivate you to get out there recording. The first is, in a place where road noise is a big problem, and yet, I managed to get this, a raven, coincidentally hitting notes in a simple pentatonic scale, and sounding a bit like a Scandinavian instrument called an overtone flute:
And, just two days ago, right next to a soccer match, where I really thought, “What’s the point of even taking out the Tascam?” I got a recording of a starling doing a wolf whistle, probably the funniest recording I ever got!:
https://xeno-canto.org/1076251
It won’t always be easy, but keep looking for those little tiny refuges against the constant barrage of anthropogenic noise, and you will hear wonderful sounds you will treasure for the rest of your life.
Ponderings Of An Autist 