"Listening in Nature" is an educational blog
that says, "Come join me on an exploration
in the woods, the marshes, and the meadows!"
I began writing Listening in Nature ten years ago and have a considerable collection of stories and observations from the field. My posts cover birdsong, cricket and katydid song, and the songs of frogs and toads. You can find it at listeninginnature.blogspot.com
There's a list of topics on the right sidebar, so you can look up Tufted Titmice and Sword-bearing Coneheads and many others you may want to read about. Each post has several recordings and often has sonograms as well.
I've written comparisons of bird songs that sound similar and birds that have a large repertoire of different songs. I've visited and recorded hybrid chickadees who live - and sing - in the overlap zone between Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees. I've documented the Bobolinks in our region that sing very specific songs on their territories that are different from Bobolinks on territories elsewhere in the area - some surprisingly nearby.
I've tracked katydids and crickets that are moving north with global warming and found species that have not been recorded in NE Ohio before. There are two look-alike and sound-alike cricket species whose ranges overlap right in NE Ohio, and I've been recordings and identifying both. How is this done? Counting the number of wing strokes per second!
People want to know what they're hearing, and these programs help make people more aware of what birds, frogs, and singing insects are communicating. As they listen more closely to the natural world, they become increasingly invested in preserving the concert halls and protecting the musician so that the music continues.
