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Peterson Field Guide To Bird Sounds Of Western North America (Peterson Field Guides) Hardcover – Illustrated, April 2, 2019

by Nathan Pieplow (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 62 ratings
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A comprehensive field guide that uses an innovative Sound Index to allow readers to quickly identify unfamiliar songs and calls of birds in western North America.
 

Bird songs and calls are at least as important as visual field marks in identifying birds. Yet short of memorizing each bird’s repertoire, it’s difficult to sort through them all. Now, with the western edition of this groundbreaking book, it’s possible to visually distinguish bird sounds and identify birds using a field-guide format.
 
At the core of this guide is the spectrogram, a visual graph of sound. With a brief introduction to five key aspects—speed, repetition, pauses, pitch pattern, and tone quality—readers can translate what they hear into visual recognition, without any musical training or auditory memorization.
 
The Sound Index groups similar songs together, narrowing the identification choices quickly to a brief list of birds that are likely to be confused because of the similarity of their songs. Readers can then turn to the species account for more information and/or listen to the accompanying audio tracks available online.
 
Identifying birds by sound is arguably the most challenging and important skill in birding. This book makes it vastly easier to master than ever before.

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  1. Print length
    648 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Mariner Books
  4. Publication date
    April 2, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 1.39 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0547905572
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0547905570
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

NATHAN PIEPLOW has been fascinated by birds since his childhood in South Dakota, and has intensively studied bird sounds since 2003. He is the former editor of the journal Colorado Birds and an author of the Colorado Birding Trail. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he teaches writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books; Illustrated edition (April 2, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 648 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0547905572
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0547905570
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1.39 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 62 ratings

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
62 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Claremont Guy
5.0 out of 5 stars Pictures are worth a thousand words.
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2023
Verified Purchase
A through book. The spectrograms are very helpful in identifying local birds. If only the mocking bird would cut out all the imitations!
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ValiantWarior
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Resource
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2022
Verified Purchase
The amount of information about bird sounds collected in this book is astounding. I am new to bird watching/identification, but I have very much enjoyed diving into the hobby.
I am disabled, so I have to do most of my bird observing from my bedroom window. That means a lot of times, I only hear the birds, rather than see them. This book has detailed descriptions of the different calls each species makes, as well as their spectrograph images. I’m a very detailed and analytical techie sort of person, but I also enjoy the beauty of sound converted to image.
This book is perfect. I would assume the volume for Eastern North American Birds is equally excellent.
3 people found this helpful
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Eloise Pelmulder
5.0 out of 5 stars This Bird Book is especially good for new birders with a technical background.
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is a great collection of spectra. Using this with the online recordings and Song Sleuth application has helped me identify which bird I am listening to in the field. After using the book and recordings to get a feeling for how the spectra diagrams and sounds correlate, I have been able to rule out a similar looking bird by comparing the sound I heard and the spectra of the possible birds. For a new birder with experience in sound, this guide is much more useful than the traditional descriptions of bird songs and calls.
6 people found this helpful
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Edward Ernest
5.0 out of 5 stars Must have for all birders.
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2019
Verified Purchase
Had the pleasure of attending a presentation by the author Nathan Pieplow about the art of "earbirding". This book, his presentation, the accompanying website and his effort to this often overlooked aspect of birding is AMAZING. It opened my "ears" to the complexity of the different sounds birds make and enhanced my appreciation of our fine feathered friends.
10 people found this helpful
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Linda
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb resource
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2020
Verified Purchase
Lots of great information, and lots to learn about birdsong! Wonderful.
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2019
Verified Purchase
Very well researched. Based upon decades of experience. Pieplow has created a new way to describe bird vocalization
2 people found this helpful
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FrauChicklet
5.0 out of 5 stars Sonorific!
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2019
Verified Purchase
Really helps with birding by ear! Cool book knowledgeable author.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great info. for birder's.
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2019
Verified Purchase
Enjoying the heck out of my new book.
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Top reviews from other countries

JD
5.0 out of 5 stars really fun to look through.
Reviewed in Canada on November 16, 2020
Verified Purchase
Yes, the website with the recordings is available without buying the book, but I'm really enjoying having the book. There's a nice succinct writeup in front about how to interpret the sonagrams, and I also like having the writeups under each species about which months certain songs or calls are heard and under what circumstances. There's also one sonagram for each species showing typical large scale patterns over an 8 second stretch, which is useful. Plus there is the visual index at the back, listing under each kind of sound all the species that could be possible. I think all in all this book provides a much more systematic way of thinking about what you hear when out birding.
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Sherry225
5.0 out of 5 stars Great resource for avian acoustics
Reviewed in Canada on August 10, 2019
Verified Purchase
Very comprehensive and detailed, great resource for advanced birders
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Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars OK
Reviewed in Canada on July 3, 2019
Verified Purchase
It should be noted that this book doesn't function as a field guide - the real reference is the online sounds but while it's a wonderful collection it doesn't go beyond freely available references like macaulay library or xeno-canto. Also, while billed as a manual for 'Western North America' in reality it only claims coverage south of 50°N - Canadian and Alaskan birders are sure to be disappointed and a number of uniquely western species are omitted. The book also suffers as a number of errors slipped through editing (e.g. the same map is used for Dusky Flycatcher and Dusky-capped Flycatcher) suggesting this book was compiled with much less attention to detail than it's Eastern companion. Overall, I think it unlikely this guide will come off my shelf with any regularity.
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