Bird Talk Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds They Make

A hilarious, informative, and vibrantly illustrated guide to 101 bird songs that sound surprisingly familiar.

Have you ever gone for a walk in the woods and wondered what bird was making a sound like a siren going off, or somebody revving a chainsaw engine—or sneezing? Do you hear birds every day, in the park or your neighborhood, but never know quite what you are listening to?   

Birds are singing all around us, and author and illustrator Becca Rowland, aka Girl in White Glasses, connects the dots between their songs and the birds who make them, helping you to easily identify and remember their calls. Combining illustrations of common and rare birds with fascinating facts and whimsical descriptions of their calls, this book is full of humor and charm. 

From space lasers to cheeseburgers, Bird Talk introduces you to the weird and wonderful world of bird songs.

Flight Plan: Table of Contents
 
Part 1: Some of Your Basic Birds
These birds aren’t boring, even if some are called common. They are birds you’ve seen, you’ve heard, you would recognize them in a children’s puzzle book, maybe you would guess their name in a Sunday crossword. Okay not Sunday, let’s go with a Tuesday crossword, but you’ll do it in pen!
 
Great blue heron
Northern Cardinal
Great-tailed grackle
Common grackle
Fish crow
American robin
Blue jay
American white pelican
American crow
Common raven
Raven vs. Crow
 
Part 2: It Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means: birds with suggestive names
As the way with language, words evolve over time. The birds here have ended up with suggestive names but that wasn’t their original intention. Nuthatches like nuts but none have been observed incubating any. There are several birds named tits which of course relate to the little chirps they sing and not their teats. You see, birds don’t have any.
 
Gang-gang cockatoo
Yellow rail
Red-breasted nuthatch
Coal tit
Tufted titmouse
Eurasian blue tit
Great tit
Long tailed tit
Blue-footed booby
Black-capped chickadee
Seven kinds of chickadees
 
Part 3: Scavengers and Predators
Everything needs to eat, from the most microscopic bacteria to the top of the food chain. Some of these birds are the apex predators of their own chains and only fight each other, the elements, or us. The scavengers of the bird world like buzzards, condors, and vultures, clean up the mess, found in the elements, made by each other, and us.
 
American kestrel
Turkey vulture
Black vulture
Shoebill stork
Little penguin
Red-tailed hawk
Bald eagle
Birds of prey
 
Have You Got a Towel?: birds who love the water
Some birds live their whole lives by or on water, from wading birds on beaches, to ducks on a pond, to famously the albatross who chooses to live most of their whole life at sea. Mind you not in flight the whole time, birds can float. Other birds prefer their water in an auditory manner and can sound like water dripping in an elaborate ruse to fool their friends into thinking they’ve left the tap on.
 
Double crested cormorant
Magpie lark
Common eider
Wedge-tailed shearwater
Trumpeter swan
Weka
Ruddy turnstone
Green kingfisher
Brant
Brown-headed cowbird
Northern shoveler
Nest sweet nest
 
Part 4: Who? I Think You Mean Whom: let’s talk about owls
Collective nouns (which are more poetic than useful) state that a group of owls is a parliament. Clearly, we have leaned into the wise old owl trope with this decision, but since owls are known for being solitary and clearly terrible at governmental policies, it’s an odd choice. I mean, they’ve never even passed a law, let alone had a successful vote.
 
Barn owl
Tawny owl
Snowy owl
Long-eared owl
African wood owl
Burrowing owl
Barred owl
Northern saw-whet owl
Western screech owl
Eastern screech owl
Owls: not just for fantasy novels
 
Part 5: Ha Ha! Fooled You Again: birds that sound like other animals
Does a bird that sounds like a cat, sound as sweet? Not all birds are melodic songbirds serenading us with their music as they fetch our ribbons and thread in the fairytale that we very much do not live in. A few birds, however, do incredible impressions of other animals with their songs and calls. What is their end game? Are they taking their show on the road? Are they luring us into the woods hoping we have kibble? Maybe keep some in your pocket, just in case.
 
African penguin
Barking owl
American bittern
Green catbird
Canada Jay
Little owl
Canada goose
Gray catbird
Your Bird Zodiac
 
Part 6: Not From Around These Parts: birds not from North America
Now ‘these parts’ entirely depend on the parts of which you happen to be in. Maybe like birds you move around a lot depending on snacking opportunities, maybe also like birds you stay in one place because you’ve gotten the couch cushion just right. For those in North America, these birds you may never see, some you may never have heard of, admittedly some you might have to look up how to pronounce.
 
Cape sparrow
Kōkako
Common cuckoo
Morepork/ruru
African gray hornbill
Bell miner
Purple-backed fairywren
White-browed coucal
Australian king parrot
Korimako
We owe pigeons an apology
 
Part 7: Human Is as Human Does: birds that sound like us
We humans like to think we are the greatest thing on the planet since avocado on toast, and often transfer our own mannerisms and qualities onto the animal kingdom. We see faces in things that are not faces like the man in the moon, or that wall outlet with a surprised expression. Bird sounds get equated to human-made noises as well, to make sense of them, to remember them, or because they make us giggle. Many birds sound similar to people laughing, like some species of woodpeckers, gulls, or ducks. Rest assured, they are laughing at us, not with us.
 
Dusky grouse
Resplendent quetzal
Brown-headed nuthatch
Ovenbird
Eastern Whip-poor-will
Kookaburra
Peacock
Common potoo
California quail
Northern bobwhite
Eastern whipbird
Eggs: every bird starts somewhere
 
Part 8: Come Here Often?: birds that travel and those that don’t
The range of birds in the world is vast, as are their qualities and behaviors. Some live their whole lives a few short miles from where they hatched. Some rack up more frequent flyer miles than a whole squad of flight attendants.  The desire to move and where seems out of their control as if they all get a return ticket one day in the mail and an eviction letter the next. If they catch a bug in the air while migrating, is that an in-flight meal? And is it extra? At least there’s no baggage fee.
 
Upland sandpiper
Whooping crane
Sandhill crane
Snowy egret
Northern flicker
Yellow-bellied sapsucker
Gray flycatcher
Killdeer
Comb-crested jacana
Willow ptarmigan
Atlantic puffin
European Starling
Gunnison Sage-grouse
Migration: should I stay or should I go
 
Part 9: Cacophony, Commotion, and Clarity: birds with unique sounds
Ah, the sereneness of being alone in your thoughts on a crisp sunny day, the window slightly ajar, as the curtains waft in the fragrant breeze. Only to be acutely aware of the volume, pitch, and otherworldly sounds coming from the birds outside. Either eerie, alarming, or simply noisy, birds are masters at getting the attention of each other, and of us.
 
Common loon
Mourning dove
Australian magpie
Purple martin
Rock wren
Rhinoceros auklet
White-throated sparrow
Bobolink
Swainson’s thrush
White bellbird
Northern mockingbird
Can you keep it down: loud birds
 

Index: List of 101 birds