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I have a secret: I am an average birder.
I write about birds for a living, so people tend to assume that I must be an experienced, hardcore birder as well. But the truth is that my birding style can be described as casual. I don’t keep lists or chase rarities, and to be honest I’m pretty bad at identifying birds by sound.
Or at least I was until this spring, when I decided to try out a new smartphone app designed to make birding by ear accessible to the inexperienced. This tool, part of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Merlin Bird ID app, made me aware of the birdsong around me in a way that years of birding with seasoned experts never did. The app not only rekindled my interest in my favorite pastime, but also introduced me to my new favorite bird, the Warbling Vireo—a species that has been around me for years but has until now managed to fly under my radar.
I met the vireo in a rather nondescript place. Migration is just beginning, and I squeeze in a quick bird walk at my local patch before starting work. The Fort Walla Walla Natural Area in southeastern Washington is nothing special—50 acres of blackberry bramble and cottonwood sandwiched between a hospital and a Home Depot. But this is the closest place near my house where I can find any interesting migrants.
On this particular morning, I again felt a little frustrated about my inability to ID some of the songs I was hearing, and about the birds I was inevitably missing as a result. Then I remembered that the Merlin Bird ID app once added a “sound ID” feature that I wanted to try. It takes advantage of it Cornell Lab’s extensive library of more than 1.5 million birdsong recordings to capture live audio in the field and identify species in real time using machine learning. I took my phone out of my pocket, opened the app, and gave it permission to use the microphone.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that moment changed my birding life. Within an hour, the app alerted me to the presence of Western Wood-Pewees and Olive-sided Flycatchers, helped me remember how to distinguish the songs of Black-headed Grosbeaks from those of the ubiquitous robins, and took me to the first MacGillivray’s. Warbler I’ve seen in years. I feel like a goober as I hit the trails with my phone facing me to catch all the songs and calls. But waking up to the presence of so many amazing birds that I didn’t realize were common so close to my home was a humbling experience.
My favorite discovery was the Warbling Vireo. You are probably familiar with this bird. I wasn’t—in fact I have a blind spot when it comes to vireos. I have a strange tendency to forget that they exist, and I can’t even tell you which species are common where I live. So when the app claimed it was hearing Cassin’s Vireo first, and then Warbling Vireo, I was shocked. Oh right! The boys! They have always been with me. And while the Cassin’s Vireos move on to other habitats in the following weeks, the Warbling Vireos remain throughout the summer.
Although belonging to the often subtly colored bird family, Warbling Vireos are especially unremarkable in both appearance and sound. Most are gray with a slight yellow wash, and an acquaintance of mine on Twitter recently described their song as the elevator music of birding. It is a generic, endless, up-and-down warble (hence their name) which, if you’re a bad ear-birder like me, can easily be written as, “maybe a finch?” And then ignore it.
But for me, now that I know they fit, that’s a big part of the charm of the species. Turns out these are Warbling Vireos, and their warble, is anywhere. Watching my child on the playground at the local park? Warbling Vireos sing. Shopping for nursery plants on the street? Warbling Vireos sing. Streamed old episodes of M*A*S*H while I’m folding the laundry? Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s a Warbling Vireo singing in the background.
I thought I knew all the common birds here. Discovering the presence of a Warbling Vireo through its song is like receiving a secret message that only I can hear, no matter where I go.
I’m still learning to bird by ear. I found, however, that having an app that could hear and identify bird songs around me in real time increased my learning. After some practice with Merlin, for example, I no longer have to reach for my phone to tell the song of a Wilson’s Warbler apart from a Yellow Warbler, or identify the sprouting! of a Spotted Towhee.
And after years as an avid but casual birder, finding myself back in “newbie’s mind” has been a pleasure. Learning (or relearning) the sounds of my local birds added a new dimension, a new texture, to my appreciation of the natural world around me. And while catching a flash of orange (Bullock’s Oriole!) or turquoise (Lazuli Bunting!) or yellow (Western Tanager!) will always get my heart racing, I’ll still take the time to listen for Warbling Vireos that seem haunted every tree in my adoption, now that I can hear them.
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