Birdsong Archives

Macauley Library of Animal Behavior : This Cornell Ornithology Lab site has a wonderful collection of sounds and videos of a large number of animals, including birds. There is a free, downloadable program (RavenViewer) for visualizing the sounds found on the site. While the full Macauley Library of Bird Sounds requires a hefty subscription, this free, public library of sounds and videos includes many birds and is fascinating to browse. Some of these recordings are also on the Lab's All About Birds website.

North American Bird Sounds by Naturesongs

eNature Bird Song Library : This newly updated site by the National Wildlife Federation has fact sheets, songs, and calls of nearly 500 California birds. You can search by zip code (ZipGuides) to find birds and other critters in your region.

Bird Songs (WAV files) -- U. S. Geological Survey

Useful Page of Links to Birdsongs and Birding -- Tony Phillips, SUNY

Bird Vocalization on Wikipedia has a useful list of song archives, as well as being interesting itself.

Birdsong Mnemonics for Identification

Mnemonics for Bird Songs by South Bay Birders

Guide to Identifying Birds in California's Central Coast by Jeff Davis

Birdsong Mnemonics -- organized by bird and by sound by Tomm Lorenzin

Bird Identification

All About Birds: This excellent resource from the Cornell Ornithology Lab has a wealth of information about many North American birds, including descriptions and recordings of songs and calls.

Backyard Birds

Birds in Forested Landscapes (Cornell University)

Birdsong and Music

Birdsong has inspired music of virtually every genre. For a quick introduction, see the Wikipedia Bird Vocalization sub-entry on Bird Song and Music.

For a fascinating contemporary example, see jazz vocalist and birdsong lover Susan Krebs' project Jazz Aviary.

Bird Sound Imaging Software

Raven Lite is a wonderful, free program for visualizing birdsong (or any sound) as sonograms.

Donald Kroodsma makes excellent use of sonograms in his book, The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong.

Suthers Lab -- Multimedia Animations of the Syrinx for a different kind of imaging.