If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say or thought to myself, “I wish I was better at bird songs!”, I’d have a whole pile of cash (and would donate it all to Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance, naturally!). This seems to be a universally felt sentiment—not just among birders, but also folks who just enjoy being outside.

*Gray Catbird (photo by Dennis Church FCC)*

And for good reason. Each species of bird has its own, distinct, identifiable song. They also make a whole bunch of other noises—alarm calls, begging calls, flight calls, non-vocal noises, peeps, whoops, squeaks, and more. It can be overwhelming to hear and sort out!

Each spring since 2018, SoWBA partners with the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired to host a Birding by Ear class for folks like you and me who love to listen to birds and want to get better at identifying birds by sound, rather than sight. The class focuses not so much on identifying the bird we’re hearing, but rather HOW to identify the bird. Is it a song? Call? Non-vocal? What habitat are we in and does that narrow down the options for identifying the bird? Is it a sharp noise, a raspy noise, is there a pattern?

*Participants of the 2025 Birding by Ear class, held at Aldo Leopold Nature Center on May 10. We love this class so much! (Photo by Brenna Marsicek/SoWBA)*

Once the class is finished, attendees leave the room all charged up and excited about listening to birds. But it can be hard to maintain that “Can Do” attitude when you exit the building and are inundated with a cacophony of noise—bird and otherwise. Practice, patience, and giving oneself a little grace are critical when learning to Bird by Ear.

As I write this, I’m sitting at a table in my backyard. The first layer of noises I hear are man-made: interstate traffic, my kids eating breakfast, and ope, there goes that dump truck again. I have to be intentional about narrowing my focus, so my brain can tune out that city noise and hone in on the birds. And there are so many birds! Northern Cardinal, American Robin, American Goldfinch, Northern House Wren, those pesky House Sparrows, ooh fun! a Red-eyed Vireo! I start the Merlin bird ID app to keep a running tally of who’s making noise back here—after 15 minutes, it tallies up 13 species. Some I didn’t hear (wait, where was that Eastern Towhee?) and some it didn’t record (that was a Mourning Dove).

Learning bird sounds is a lifelong practice, much like learning a new language. To help with this process, we’ve started a new blog series called Who’s That Singing? The articles are short and sweet, and focus on a different bird species each week. The species are selected by which species I hear often that week—this week the focus is on the Gray Catbird because it’s babbling in an almost-constant stream of noises right now!

I hope you’ll tune into our Who’s That Singing? webpage each week to join us in practicing Birding by Ear. Happy birding!

Written by Brenna Marsicek, director of outreach