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| The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong | 
 enlarge | Author: Donald Kroodsma
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $4.91
You Save: $12.04 (71%)
New (34) Used (24) from $2.37
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 67180
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 0618840761
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.1594
EAN: 9780618840762
ASIN: 0618840761
Publication Date: April 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
A Superb Masterpiece June 7, 2005
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
I found myself in complete agreement with the preceding 5-star reviews by Laura Allender, John Matlock and Laura L. Erickson. I only wish there was a way to rank the book higher than 5-stars.
Reading the book took me on a journey into an amazing, beautiful, and complex world that I previously had no idea existed. I kept finding myself saying "wow!" at the wonderful and startling discovers I came across. I especially liked the fact that the author is completely honest about what he doesn't know, explaining the many mysteries about bird singing that still remain to be solved. Rarely does one see the humanities so beautifully merged with science. The book is one of the best I have ever read, barring none.
My only regret is that there is as yet no edition of this book that uses color images of the birds and sonograms (the stunning cover jacket is in color). I would be willing to pay a little extra for such a version of this fantastic book.
 Book is fascinating but CD is confusing June 28, 2006
18 out of 24 found this review helpful
Criticism of the CD: What I wanted was a CD where the type of bird would be announced on the CD before or after the song, so that I could listen to the CD without having to read along in the book. (I wanted to learn bird songs during my commuting time, which precludes reading along.) Also, even when using the book, I had a great deal of trouble telling when one track had ended and another had begun, so I was usually lost and confused. This is not the right CD for me.
Excellent book for the amateur bird enthusiast August 2, 2005
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
You need not know much of anything about birds or how to listen to them to enjoy this book. It is well written, informative, and an easy read. The accompanying CD of birds songs is very helpful in understanding the sonograms of various bird songs given in the book. The sonograms themselves, I found, to be wonderful visual guides for 'seeing' what one is hearing, particularly for those rapid-singing bird species.
I highly recommend this book to any one intersted in birds and their songs.
Inspiring in so many ways! September 5, 2005
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
What a transforming book and CD! I'm a casual birdwatcher, but not very good at listening to their songs. I learned how to really listen to birds and read sonograms, but I learned so much more. The passion Kroodsma conveys for his field of studying birdsong is contagious. He describes each set of experiments almost in memoir form, describing the scene and his feelings and posing the questions that pop into his mind even as his first questions are answered. For a scientist to still have such a sense of wonder and poetry about his field after 30+ years of study is truly a gift. We get a glimpse into how the scientific method works as well as what the method has shown us about birdsong over the years.
I had only two problems with the book, but it was otherwise so overwhelmingly wonderful that I didn't dock it any stars. I found the CD a little cumbersome to listen to as I read, so I read the book first and then listened, which was not ideal. Also, he flubbed some easily-checked facts about the northern cardinal. He left out my home state of Indiana and also Missouri (at least) when he listed the states that have the cardinal as their state bird. And I'm quite sure that the Cardinals football team had already moved to Arizona by the time he wrote the statement that St. Louis' sports teams were named for the bird. But then again, when you spend every morning (and sometimes all night) listening to birds, maybe you don't have time to check such trivia.
I wish I had more time to listen to the CD over and over and review the stories and experiments that go with each recording, but my book queue is long, and they all have due dates at the library. This may just be one of those books I break down and buy.
 Great book; a few annoying flaws July 5, 2005
15 out of 28 found this review helpful
I agree in the basics with everyone who loved the style and the way Dr. Kroodsma encourages us to interact and become passionate about the birds whose lives intersect our own.
Peeves:
*In the bibliography, authors' names are misspelled, e.g., Slaberkoorn (unless Amazon and Alibris misspelled it on their pages),
*I tried looking at four of the URL's listed in the book; none of them were working pages, including the page from Cornell's Mcaulay Library for recording advice
For these reasons, I gave 4 rather than 5 stars.
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