British Bird Sounds cover art

British Bird Sounds

The Definitive Audio Guide to Birds in Britain

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British Bird Sounds

By: Ron Kettle, Richard Ranft
Narrated by: uncredited
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About this listen

A total of 175 species are heard on this download, ranging from the familiar tawny owl to the very rare call of the bittern.

The authoritative guide to all British birds likely to be encountered by the average birdwatcher and the ideal gift for anyone wishing to learn the sounds of the great variety of birds that can be seen and heard throughout the seasons. A perennial best seller.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our desktop site.

©2000 The British Library Board (P)2000 The British Library Board Alternative & Complementary Medicine Animals Biological Sciences Biology Birdwatching Meditation Outdoors & Nature Science

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All stars
Most relevant  
No bird names only chapters making it impossible to navigate through what are otherwise good recordings

Can't navigate to bird names

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Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Recordings were excellent, but there is no indexing, so one cannot find a track one wants to hear. Such a collection should allow one to select similar recordings to compare them, to learn the subtle differences, or recordings from similar looking birds to allow the sounds to be used for identifying confusing species. This one does not. A pity as the content is actually rather good - great opportunity for a really useful recording wasted.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Great recordings. No indexing unable to search - silly!

Would you listen to another book narrated by the narrator?

Narrator not the issue

Any additional comments?

Such a limitation should be advertised on the page selling the book, as otherwise you are taking people's money without being straight about the limitations.

Great if it were searchable. Just disappointing

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Beautiful recordings: exactly what I needed to build up recognition of a few more birds each spring. This has added a wonderful extra dimension to country walks. It is also now fully indexed. Like earlier reviewers, my original download was one continuous recording, but my version on Audible has been updated and now has a separate, labelled chapter for all 175 birds. Try re-downloading if you're missing this.

Excellent guide and now fully indexed

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ideal for me i have trouble retaining bird sound , so i have to constantly refresh my memory . Also its relaxing to listen to. 1fault, brambling calls could be more comprehensive.

ideal for me i have trouble retaining bird sound

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I was wary of buying this title as previous reviews stated that you couldn’t choose an individual track to listen to a specific bird’s call. I decided to buy it anyway to listen to in the car as I have other books/cds that I can access on a track by track basis. I was very pleasantly surprised then to find that you can in fact access individual tracks in the Audible app using the ‘chapters’ tab. Previous reviews stated that you could only listen to groups of sounds using chapters, but I can confirm that you can pick any individual bird sound you like. This makes this audible book an excellent resource.

You can access individual tracks

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Unlike other reviews I did not expect or require an index. Great audio and a very useful reference.

Great reference

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loved it . I also found it very relaxing and it helped me to sleep

birdsong

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Any additional comments?

An Index is available as a short PDF download from the full audible site (under title). Although the Index is in the cd disk format, it still gives the order of play. Individual tracks can best be accessed in the player by accessing the 36 Chapters in the left margin.

Index is available

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Would you listen to British Bird Sounds again? Why?

Yes, I will listen to it over and over again to try to familiarise myself with the different bird sounds. This is a straight recording of the bird sounds with a simple spoken name of the bird before each recording. No other explanation or guidance.
You have to know the name of the bird first to find the sound recording, rather than matching/identifying the sound you hear in the wild by using the recorded sounds.

Any additional comments?

The Audible download dose not list any of the bird names separately (just chapters 1 to 36)
There is now a PDF download which lists all the bird sounds as individual items.

Chapter 1 = bird sound 1-5, chap 2 = bird sound 6-9, then every consecutive chapter includes the next 5 listed bird sounds (except for chap 20 which is only bird 95 &96)
Disc 2 starts with chap 21 = bird sound 1-4 (on disc 2) then back to each chapter being the next 5 bird sounds until the end.

Although this works, it's a real pain because you have to have a separate download or printed list rather than just scrolling through the playlist on your phone!!
Why make it so difficult to use??
Please, please update the chapter content on the actual playlist.

Great sound, difficult to use!!

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Amazing quality recordings suitable for anyone wishing to learn bird songs and calls. A great resource. I've read other reviews saying that it is not possible to search for and access individual bird calls. I've found that the 'Chapters' tab gives access to each bird very easily. This works on both the desktop and iphone app versions. The accompanying pdf is also available in both versions.

Superb recordings

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