EarbirdingHumboldt
& Northern California
Where the trees are TALL, the understory can be THICK, and the birds are SHY!
This is the place to learn who's singing around you in the forests, wetlands, and your yard.
AUDUBON POWERPOINT PRESENTATION
Click to download and view the PowerPoint that I presented to the local Audubon meeting on 3/15/23. I covered tips on learning earbirding, along with recording audio and editing audio files. I'll add a link to the actual Zoom recording when it becomes available, which will include the audio. NOTE: trying to view the PowerPoint on an iPhone doesn't really work...Apple doesn't support the PowerPoint program. Oddly, it works just fine on an Apple laptop. On a non-Apple PC, it'll appear as a tab in your bottom workbar, or go to your Downloads folder. It'll take a minute or so, depending on your internet speed....
ABOUT THIS SITE
We're surrounded by birds in Humboldt County but they can be very hard to spot. I'm an amateur birder/recordist trying to learn the birdsongs around me, and as a retired science teacher (EHS!), I'm in the habit of dragging people along with me.
I've set up the site so that you can learn just a few of the "loudbeaks" that you most commonly hear around you, or you can dive in deeper and learn most of the commonly heard birds in your choice of habitat, including those in your yard. I'm pretty convinced that knowing the identity of those hidden songsters will add a whole new dimension to your outdoor experience.
I learned to identify birds visually in my ornithology class at MU in Columbia, MO in 1975. I suppose that we weren't taught earbirding because the birds are far easier to see in the Midwest....the trees aren't as tall, they're bare half the year, and the birds aren't as shy.
Moving here forced me to learn earbirding. That dovetailed:) nicely with my lifelong interest in sound recordings of all types. All of the bird songs and calls on this site were collected by me, locally, unless otherwise noted. This will make learning them a bit easier due to the fact that some birds have dialects that vary by location, and the bird recordings available on the various birding apps and websites are almost always made elsewhere.
Have fun tuning your ears to the amazing birds around you!
Robert Childs
