Hi Lisa, I will also count birds I hear but don’t see, but I have a sort of sliding scale of familiarity that I mentally use to decide when I’m comfortable doing that. If we think about spring warblers, there are some species that I’m very familiar with or that are very common that I don’t think twice about calling the ID on, and I don’t spend a lot of time looking for them, like Northern Parula, Prothonotary, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated green, Blackpoll and Black-and-white. I have a habit of making the effort to track down and get a visual the first time I run across the species each spring, because you do get rusty over the course of the year, but after that, I’m a bit more likely to report the species when I just have heard the bird. That said, the recent post by Jeremy McEntire, and an experience I had yesterday where a Redstart totally had me believing it was a Chestnut-Sided warbler serve to keep me humble and alert. I have to agree with Wendy’s comment though - once you have gained some facility with identifying birds by ear, about 90% of the time you “get on the bird” because you have heard it and therefore know it is present before you have any visual cues. Lewis On May 9, 2014, at 12:01 PM, Wendy Ealding (Redacted sender "wealding@xxxxxxx<mailto:wealding@xxxxxxx>" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote: Yes - I do, and I estimate that I find as many as 90% of the species in forests that way. It's a skill that takes a lot of effort and it really pays off. Wendy Ealding North Chesterfield -----Original Message----- From: Catharine W. Tucker <cath.tucker@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:cath.tucker@xxxxxxxxx>> To: kunsthure <kunsthure@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:kunsthure@xxxxxxxxx>>; Madden FreeLists.org<http://FreeLists.org> <va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> Sent: Fri, May 9, 2014 10:38 am Subject: [va-richmond-general] Re: Question about birding by ear Of course! Half the fun of seeing them is learning who says(sings) what! Then you can ID the ones you know by sound & go on to hunting more elusive birds. It's also important to know who's sharing the habitat/community. Sent from my iPhone On May 9, 2014, at 9:05 AM, Lisa Mease <kunsthure@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, all, > > I've been wondering how many of you count birds that you hear but don't see? I keep reading about all the great species you find so I'm jealous, but I don't count birds unless I see them (ubiquitous birds like Cardinals) or photograph them (trickier birds like warblers). > > -Lisa > > --- > the hardest thing is rendering a moment moving too fast to endure. -- incubus > > > > > > > You are subscribed to VA-Richmond-General. To unsubscribe, send email to va-richmond-general-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. To adjust other settings (vacation, digest, etc.) please visit, //www.freelists.org/list/va-richmond-general.