Becca Rowland

Bird Talk

Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds They Make

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

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 101 birds from around the world—from the common to the rare—with fascinating facts and memorable 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.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Storey Publishing
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 24. Juni 2025
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781635869231
• ISBN-10: 1635869234
• Artikelnr.: 71921417

Autorenporträt

Becca Rowland, an artist and writer from Nova Scotia, Canada, draws inspiration from her mum’s knack for identifying birds by their sounds. Having explored all seven continents and lived on four, Rowland's art reflects her fascination with the diverse birds she has seen worldwide. Find her on Instagram and TikTok: @girlinwhiteglasses.

Inhaltsangabe

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