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 enlarge | Authors: Richard K. Walton, Robert W. Lawson
Creator: Roger Tory Peterson
Brand: Peterson Books
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $15.90
You Save: $14.10 (47%)
New (25) Used (10) from $15.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 29470
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Items: 3
Pages: 64
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.9
MPN: PB618225900
ISBN: 0618225900
Dewey Decimal Number: 598
UPC: 046442225908
EAN: 9780618225903
ASIN: 0618225900
Publication Date: April 4, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Absolutely Brand New & In Stock. 100% 30-Day Money Back. Direct from our warehouse. Ships by USPS. 1+ million customers served-In business since 1986. Happy Customers is Our #1 Goal. Toll Free Support
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| Customer Reviews:
Superlative! October 24, 2005
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
"The songs we're now hearing are ancient tunes..."
So begins Dick Walton's evocative and thoughtful narrative to these wonderful birdsong recordings. I learned many bird songs when I was young. That knowledge has stayed with me over the years but I always wanted to learn more. I became aware of this CD after purchasing The Singing Life of Birds by Donald Kroodsma. Kroodsma's enjoyable book contains a CD which includes owl recordings from the Peterson Field Guide. I liked those so much I tracked down this CD to hear more. I wasn't disappointed. This is an excellent CD set. The field recordings and production values are second to none. The sound quality is superb. Dick Walton helps us sort out all of these complex sounds and match them to the birds that sing them. What a pleasure it is to sit and listen to this three CD set through headphones. The CD package also comes with a 62 page identification guide showing all the birds whose beautiful songs are captured in these recordings.
Highly Recommended September 18, 2005
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
I'm a novice who became interested in birds and their songs when I bought a house and discovered all kinds of interesting birds in the backyard. I love this CD set because it doesn't just play bird songs, it teaches you how to listen, and gives you hints and tricks to help differentiate between similar-sounding species. I listen to this set in my car during my commute, and now I can identify almost every sound I hear in my backyard.
Bird Sounds September 14, 2005
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This and the "More Birding By Ear" are both excellent systems for learning or extending your learning the sounds. The method of grouping the calls makes an abstract subject practical. I know most of the birds but have not always been able to link a call to a specific bird. The fifth edition of Peterson is an aid to looking up birds in that the recordings are link to this version.
The BEST Guide for Learning Bird Calls! June 7, 2005
55 out of 55 found this review helpful
I spend alot of time outdoors and have always been curious about identifying birds, trees and wildflowers around me. This set of CDs is the second set of bird calls I have purchased (and this does not even include all the on-line browsing and listening at the USGS Patuxent site). I have had a lot of difficulty with single bird/associated song or call types of audio (ie. name of bird-recording of call, next bird...). There are a lot of birds out there, and it is tough memory recall when you have a CD of 200 some bird calls and it is basically rote memorization to try to remember them. Not a whole lot of fun if you are a relative amateur and trying to learn to identify birds by call confidently. Those CDs will probably be useful for reference at a later time, but not now.
I then picked up the Learning By Ear CDs. Wow! This is what I should have bought a long time ago. There are 85 birds included on these 3 CDs, but they are grouped in a very intelligent fashion. Instead of just rote memorization, the birds are grouped by category. There is a really nice introduction on the first CD and then birds are presented BY GROUP (ie. Sing-Songers, Chippers and Trillers, Name-Sayers...). I cannot emphasize enough how useful this approach is to learning. Instead of just giving the sounds of, say, a Downy Woodpeckers, the CD pairs similar sounding woodpeckers so you learn that a Downy has a descending whinny and a Hairy Woodpecker has an even sounding rattle - they are compared and contrasted together it is very effective. I learned more listening to these CDs than I ever learned through rote memorization. All three CDs contain bird groupings and the last CD also includes groupings by HABITAT as well: Forest Edges, Forest Interiors, Throughout, Freshwater Wetlands, Southern Forests, Northern Forests, Hedgerows and Thickets, Old Field and Open Fields, Oak-Pine Woodlands, and Urban Parks. The informational booklet included with the CDs is also quite nice and includes summaries of the information presented on the CD along with information found in standard birding books. All together, it makes a nice, complete set if you are just starting out or want to improve your identifying skills.
To summarize, if you are interested in learning to identify birds based on their songs and calls, ignore all the other CDs out there and just pick this set up. Once you become confident and learn from these CDs, you will be better able to evaluate if you need to buy anything else. Don't forget also that these things take effort. You cannot just pop the discs in and expect to become an expert overnight. I listen on my commutes to and from work, take a lot of walks in the woods, and learn a group at a time.
This is IT good people. April 19, 2005
It is time I have said something about this series by Dick Walton. I am considered an ear-birding "God". There is virtually nothing I cannot identify in the field. When I go out with a group half act like they should start worshiping and the other half like they should run as I have apparently sold my soul to the devil and/or am some kind of evil trickster. I am never found wrong on an ear call, period, and I call everything.
And how did this come about? Simple--I bought Walton's complete "Birding by Ear" series and put in the necessary time to master it. I have also owned every other American bird song recording published since 1960. Walton's "Birding by Ear" series
stands alone as a MASTERPIECE OF INSTRUCTION.
This is IT people. Does it involve work? Repetition? Yes! Show me anything else worthwhile in life that does not! But Walton reduces the work to a nubbin of other CD/tape sets. He is the great killer of confusion and bewilderment in bird song learning.
I take off my hat to a great educator I have never met or spoken to.
Gerald Haiar
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