Don Kroodsma

The Joy of Listening

Birdsong is pure magic, we all know, and above all we will listen to and explore the singing minds of the magicians who make the music. We’ll compare inborn and learned songs, male and female songs, songs and calls. We’ll listen to song dialects, estimate how many different songs a Brown Thrasher can sing (hint, >1000), marvel at song matching and mimicry and solo duets. And, with unbridled enthusiasm and excitement, for the dawn chorus we’ll arise well before sunrise to listen during that hour when every songster is at his finest. And on Sunday morning we’ll rush outside to hear what we can hear, if we truly listen.

Among Don’s books, his new book LISTEN TO THE BIRDS will be available for purchase. In the book are two walks through several different habitats, each beginning well before sunrise, one in the East and one in the West. Twenty common, charismatic birds are featured on each walk. The book uses augmented reality, so that birds come alive and sing when a phone or tablet is pointed at them.

In Don’s words: I am a life-long scientist who asks questions, seeking answers and increasingly deeper understandings. I eagerly share what I have learned and encourage a deeper appreciation of birds and their songs by the tens of millions of others who also treasure birds.

The spring of 1968 I became hooked on birds in general, and a few months later on birdsong in particular. In graduate school at Oregon State University, I studied Bewick’s wrens, asking (and answering) primarily one simple question: Where and when and from whom does a young male learn his songs? During a post-doctoral and assistant professor stint at the Rockefeller University Field Research Center in New York (1972-1980), I honed my skills as a scientist, learning how to ask questions and obtain answers. For the next 23 years at the University of Massachusetts, I asked question after question, about wrens and chickadees and warblers and sparrows and flycatchers and almost any bird who sang. With continuous support from the National Science Foundation, I published prolifically in academic journals. In the spring and summer of 2003, I chose to celebrate birdsong across the North American continent, from Virginia on the Atlantic to Oregon on the Pacific, all from the seat of a bicycle (and with my son). I retired early so that I could celebrate birdsong full time, and start a new life.

I sought to explain birdsong to general readers, not just university academics. My first attempt was The Singing Life of Birds (2005). Next, in collaboration with Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology, I organized and wrote the Backyard Birdsong Guides (2008), which sold nearly 400,000 copies to great acclaim (until the publisher mysteriously chose to stop printing). Then came Birdsong by the Seasons (2009), again with Houghton Mifflin.

With 45 years of active birdsong research as my guide, I cherish the birdsong of spring and summer more than ever. An excellent day is when I’m out in the predawn darkness, waiting for first light to deliver the dawn chorus, and returning home hours later with a wealth of recorded song for further study. A good day is listening and studying and writing about birdsong at my desk. A bad day has no birdsong in it.