Yesterday, May 5, 2018, was a Big Day in birding, and it left me wishing I knew bird songs better.
First, what’s a “Big Day”? If you’ve seen the Jack Black / Steve Martin movie “The Big Year”, it’s kind of like that. www.eBird.org organized a world-wide “Big Day”, where birders all over the world went bird watching, counting and submitting their lists. Cornell University then uses those lists — with thousands of species — to help with research on feeding, nesting, breeding, migration and many other habits. It’s a fun way to combine science and nature study.
Herein is the problem for me. Because bird songs are very unique, you can submit that you identified a species by identifying its song. In “The Big Year” movie, Jack Black’s character had the unique ability to do just that. Living out where I do, where there is a lot of thick underbrush. Given that my eyesight is not very good, AND given that I can’t find my binoculars, being able to identify birds by hearing them is a very useful tool.
Unfortunately, I don’t know Georgia birds, or their bird songs, that well. Even when I can see them, I’m not always certain of what they are. A bird’s song is another way to verify what I think I saw is actually what I saw! As a result, I thought it would be fun to make this video of different birds and see if others could ID the birds from the video.
SOOO, if you think you know what bird I’m listening to, please ID the bird by telling me WHEN in the video you hear it, and what you think it is. And remember, I’m in Northwest Georgia, 15 minutes south of the Tennessee line, so make certain the bird you think you hear is found in this region! (In other words, a western bluebird may sound like what’s on the video, but … it’s probably an eastern bluebird!)
Thank you!
#BirdSongs #BigDay #BigDay2018 #BirdWatching #WhatIsIt
