I've managed to get goldcrests to stick. To me they sound twinkly and glittery. And then that connects to gold in my mind. No idea if that's helpful yo anyone else! But it works in my brain. I hear them all the time now. We sometimes even get one in our garden 🥲
I was very lucky one day to have a male cuckoo fly across my binocular range, cuckoo-ing, closely followed by what I soon realised was a female cuckoo, making a sound like water being poured out of a milk bottle...never to be forgotten!
Hi. My husband and I just took a field ornithology class and discovered the Merlin app. I use it everywhere I go now, keeping in mind that, as you say, it is an app and can be wrong at times. Our instructor for the class had some hilarious "this bird call sounds like..." associations to help us remember bird calls. From a teeny tiny chainsaw sound to an alien spaceship landing on a sandy beach. We enjoyed it so much, and it has made me so aware of how little I know about nature and how much I don't observe on every walk I take. Thanks for this post.
Lovely, thank you for sharing this! Merlin is an amazing tool: thanks to the app I recently discovered robins sing out loud around here while I was actually quite sure about their absence here during warm seasons. What an astonishing song!
Thanks you, I never even wandered about the cookoo female voice as well!
Oh interesting! It may be that just a few stick around while the others do migrate I suppose. We have some migratory birds like that here too... And as temperatures rise more and more stay put. Concerning and confusing... But also interesting.
This resonates a lot. While reading, I thought "I actually find it kind of comforting to know I'll never know everything about the nature around me", and then you said the same, even using the same words! I love finding and exploring new things, and it makes me happy to know that even when I cannot travel far or am not well enough to go on big adventures, there's always something new to discover. Also, great tips for memorising the bird sounds!
Great minds, eh Hannah? Totally, zooming in on the little things on your doorstep can just just as rewarding (sometimes more rewarding!) than a grand adventure.
Good luck with it Natalie! It's really great. I've been using a different app for a while and just gone back to Merlin and it's improved so much since I last used it - miles ahead of everything else I think!
Goldcrests are lovely and are everywhere in Edinburgh. it's useful to recognise their song because they tend to be up in the trees and you don't see them very easily, but their song is so high pitched that once you get to a certain age you're likely to no longer be able to hear them.
I visited the Tay Reed Beds near Perth earlier this week and we had a brief glimpse of Bearded Reedlings (Bearded Tits) and heard their funny pinging calls. We also saw and heard Yellowhammers and Sedge Warblers among others. Sedge Warblers are real mimics and i wondered how Merlin copes with that?
I better get to know the goldcrests while I still can...! Oh lucky you with your bearded tits. They always remind me of Alice Tams and her Birds in Hats because we have a tote bag somewhere with one of her illustrations on - a very hipster bearded tit wearing a beanie!
Yes, I was thinking the same thing about our local starlings the other day - they have *almost* mastered their swift impression. I guess it could be a pitch thing?
Oh no! There's always something to complicate things eh? Or perhaps to make things more fun?!?!?! I don't think I've ever seen a garden warbler here, but since I didn't think we have linnets, who knows!
The advice I was given was that garden warblers have a very similar song to blackcaps but are more tenacious and just keep singing for longer...almost to the point of being annoying!
I've managed to get goldcrests to stick. To me they sound twinkly and glittery. And then that connects to gold in my mind. No idea if that's helpful yo anyone else! But it works in my brain. I hear them all the time now. We sometimes even get one in our garden 🥲
Oooh I love that imagery Janelle, thank you!
I was very lucky one day to have a male cuckoo fly across my binocular range, cuckoo-ing, closely followed by what I soon realised was a female cuckoo, making a sound like water being poured out of a milk bottle...never to be forgotten!
i was trying to remember your description! Not far off Attenborough's “Like bathwater gurgling down a plughole”
I really loved this post! Thank you for writing it! We don’t talk enough about how humble nature makes us feel and how eager to learn 🙏
Thanks Kate. Humbled indeed.
Hi. My husband and I just took a field ornithology class and discovered the Merlin app. I use it everywhere I go now, keeping in mind that, as you say, it is an app and can be wrong at times. Our instructor for the class had some hilarious "this bird call sounds like..." associations to help us remember bird calls. From a teeny tiny chainsaw sound to an alien spaceship landing on a sandy beach. We enjoyed it so much, and it has made me so aware of how little I know about nature and how much I don't observe on every walk I take. Thanks for this post.
Excellent Kathryn, thank you for sharing! I'd love to take a class like that.
Lovely, thank you for sharing this! Merlin is an amazing tool: thanks to the app I recently discovered robins sing out loud around here while I was actually quite sure about their absence here during warm seasons. What an astonishing song!
Thanks you, I never even wandered about the cookoo female voice as well!
Oh interesting! It may be that just a few stick around while the others do migrate I suppose. We have some migratory birds like that here too... And as temperatures rise more and more stay put. Concerning and confusing... But also interesting.
This resonates a lot. While reading, I thought "I actually find it kind of comforting to know I'll never know everything about the nature around me", and then you said the same, even using the same words! I love finding and exploring new things, and it makes me happy to know that even when I cannot travel far or am not well enough to go on big adventures, there's always something new to discover. Also, great tips for memorising the bird sounds!
Great minds, eh Hannah? Totally, zooming in on the little things on your doorstep can just just as rewarding (sometimes more rewarding!) than a grand adventure.
I've been so excited this week, as I've finally nailed recognising the call of a greenfinch!
It gives me such a buzz when I learn a new bird call. I too have just discovered linnets are near me - aren't they lovely?
So lovely! And well done on the greenfinch ID.
Going to download that app now! Thank you for sharing about it - I love birds but don`t know anything about them but now I plan on learning!
Good luck with it Natalie! It's really great. I've been using a different app for a while and just gone back to Merlin and it's improved so much since I last used it - miles ahead of everything else I think!
Goldcrests are lovely and are everywhere in Edinburgh. it's useful to recognise their song because they tend to be up in the trees and you don't see them very easily, but their song is so high pitched that once you get to a certain age you're likely to no longer be able to hear them.
I visited the Tay Reed Beds near Perth earlier this week and we had a brief glimpse of Bearded Reedlings (Bearded Tits) and heard their funny pinging calls. We also saw and heard Yellowhammers and Sedge Warblers among others. Sedge Warblers are real mimics and i wondered how Merlin copes with that?
I better get to know the goldcrests while I still can...! Oh lucky you with your bearded tits. They always remind me of Alice Tams and her Birds in Hats because we have a tote bag somewhere with one of her illustrations on - a very hipster bearded tit wearing a beanie!
Yes, I was thinking the same thing about our local starlings the other day - they have *almost* mastered their swift impression. I guess it could be a pitch thing?
Lovely stuff! Although my enjoyment of blackcaps has been slightly complicated by the realisation that garden warblers sound almost EXACTLY the same…🙄
Oh no! There's always something to complicate things eh? Or perhaps to make things more fun?!?!?! I don't think I've ever seen a garden warbler here, but since I didn't think we have linnets, who knows!
The advice I was given was that garden warblers have a very similar song to blackcaps but are more tenacious and just keep singing for longer...almost to the point of being annoying!
They are the WORLD’S LEAST DISTINCTIVE LOOKING BIRD, next to a chiffchaff, so WHO KNOWS. Warblers, eh. They do my nut in.