Field Trip Ideas to Learn About BirdsIf you're looking for field trip ideas to learn about birds in specific regions, check out the links at the bottom of this page.Listen to Birds OnlineAs long as you're home, try listening to bird songs online. There's a few goood websites that give pictures, bird songs and other interesting facts about birds for free. Depending on the age of your computer, hardware and programs, you might have technical difficulties with some sites, so try another. Here's some to try:Bird Songs Online - New York Birds - Gives at least 25 groups of birds, including more than one bird per group and often more than one song per bird. The recordings are sometimes a little short, but that might make for a quicker download. The pictures are artist drawings, not real photographs, so the site might give you some good ideas for how to draw birds for art class. It's also a great site for playing the game below. National Wildlife Federation - Bird Songs - This informative site gives the pictures and calls of over 550 birds. Great variety for playing the game below, so both new and advanced players can use this site. The bird pictures are real photographs and the songs are of good length. Native Songbirds in Color and Sound - This site only gives about 12 birds, but the pictures and songs of the birds are beautiful, so you should really check it out. The real photographs capture the birds in actual song, so the recordings look like they are coming directly from the bird. It's a harder site to use if you're new at the game below, since in some ways the birds are more similar. Florida Bird Songs - Give you the option of listening to the short or long version of the bird song. There's about 90 birds to choose from. California Bird Songs - Birds of the Kaweah River Delta Region - Gives a good list of birds in California, along with information about the birds. Not every listed bird has a recorded song, but most do. This site also has about 11 colouring pages of birds - great for younger children to colour, and older children to try to imitate during art class. The Bird Listening GameTry this game. Practice listening to a few particular birds. Once you know them well, have everyone close their eyes, while another person plays the bird song. See if everyone can guess what the bird is. Add more bird songs as your ears get better at the game. To start with I suggest trying common birds that are very different from each other, like a robin, a crow, an owl and an Candian Goose. Add tougher ones as you get better.
Take the game outside in the woods, and see if you can identify a singing bird before you see it. You might need keen eyes and binoculars to find the hidden singer.
Some Bird Detective ToolsEver found you heard a bird song, and didn't know which bird was singing? For me that's still a lot of the time, alright most of the time - but we're getting there.Here's some help. Do you know what "Mnemonics" is? It's when you take an unfamiliar sound, like a foreign language word or bird song, and put it into familiar words and sounds your brain already recognizes. It can be a helpful learning tool. The Bird Song - Mnemonics website is a great tool for new and advanced bird watchers (and listeners). It takes the way the bird call sounds and puts it into english for us. Print this page out and take it with you. After you find the sound on the sheet, you'll be given the name of the bird. If you aren't familiar with the bird, look it up on one of the sites above to see it's picture. The next time you go out with your binoculars, hearing the same song, you might just find the right singer.
If you starting out already knowing the name of the bird, and you want to know what his song sounds like, use
this Mnemonics page
instead, since it organizes the birds in alphabetical order.
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