The Cornell Guide to Bird Sounds: Essential Set for North America

Buying a field guide to identify birds by sight is standard operating procedure for all birders. But to learn how to identify birds by ear, nothing beats having an extensive library of bird songs as a guide. The most useful bird song tool for birders in North America is the “Cornell Guide to Bird Sounds: Essential Set for North America.” This information-packed reference includes 1,379 audio files in MP3 format for 729 species with accompanying photographs of the birds.

Managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Macaulay Library is the acoustic and photo location for birders with more than 283,000 audio recordings of 9,922 bird species worldwide (almost all bird species).

To review examples of bird songs and learn more about the Essential Set, see https://macaulaylibrary.org/guide/audio/essential-set-for-north-america