Jonathan, regarding your comment about hearing Owls before others do, that is
the case with a friend of mine who also has hearing loss. He always hears Owls
before I do, and he is good at identifying them, so I call him the Owlmeister.
:-)
Lori Markoff
Eugene (South Hills)
From: obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of ;
Jonathan Berman
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 12:56 AM
To: lcolburn2@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: baro@xxxxxxx; ticebill7@xxxxxxxxx; Obol
Subject: [obol] Re: Hearing bird songs and calls
This discussion of hearing issues turned out to be very timely for me.
Yesterday, when I was listening to my first varied thrush song of the “false
spring,” I noticed pauses between some notes that were much longer than they
should have been. Out of curiosity I went and listened to some Macaulay varied
thrush recordings – lo and behold, I could barely hear some of the high notes
on these.
This has been a long time coming: I have a family history of early hearing
loss, and – yes – I played in a rock band for a while. Then there was the time
I tried (with a total lapse in judgement) to photograph lightning during the
Arizona monsoon season: as I was getting out of my truck, lightning struck the
other end of the turnout. Since then, there’s been a little rattling noise in
my left ear. A little over 10 years ago (in my mid-50s), I noticed people were
hearing some bird calls/songs – generally higher-pitched, sibilant ones – that
I could not. Others I could still hear, but they sounded thin, like old LP
warbler recordings. I’ve become somewhat dependent on others to find the birds
I can no longer hear.
My non-Rx hearing devices are pretty good for the muddled consonants in
conversation, but their benefit for birding has been modest. The SongFinder
sounds really cool, despite the cost, and I might investigate it. However, I
may not have pure high frequency hearing loss.
One thing I’ve noticed lately is that I am often the first person in a group to
hear owl calls. This is true for both great-horned owls and the (higher
pitched) small owls. I wonder if maybe my brain has become more attuned to
cadences or patterns of sound now that it is no longer getting all the detail.
