Challenge 1 -Listening
Learning intentions
I can practice identifying birds by sound.
I can listen to the sounds around me and reflect on what I am hearing.
Success Criteria
I can identify some of the birds that live in my area by their calls and their features.
Challenge 1 - Listening
This challenge is about detecting the pitch, melody, hoot, screech and cackle of our wild birds.
The calls they make could be communicating a range of messages to their partner, fledgling or flock. Notice the different types of calls, for example, is it a social call or an alarm call?
We are looking for
How accurately you can identify bird calls from your region. We will play a series of bird calls in the challenge, and the highest bird call identification accuracy score will win the listening challenge.
We will reflect upon and assess:
the highest accuracy for identifying birds by their calls
You can practice for this challenge by listening carefully to birds outside and bird recordings. Visit the websites with bird call recordings (see the links at the bottom of this page) and read about each bird.
As you learn about bird calls you may start to understand more about bird communication and behaviour in your local area.
A Powerful owl, our largest owl, staring with piercing vision. Powerful owls are nocturnal and hunt at night and roost by day. They are listed as vulnerable in the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act. They need mature trees with large hollows to nest and raise young in. We need to be careful and avoid many poisons (used on rats and mice) as owls hunt and eat rodents and will get sick too.
Tawny-frogmouth fledglings. Tawny frogmouths are in the nightjar family. They are nocturnal hunters of insects and small prey. By day they can camouflage by sitting motionless in a tree, and trick us into thinking that they are a stumpy tree branch, until they open their eyes and move.
Listening is a skill
We can learn to listen attentively to the sounds around us and identify the animals making the call. This can increase our understanding of bird calls as communication.
You can practice listening in to nature by finding a sit spot and being quiet. Cup your hands around your ears to make possum ears so that you can hear sounds from further away more clearly.
Making a soundmap is a fun activity where you draw the sounds around you. Here is a resource from the Royal National Environmental Education Centre about making a soundmap.
Birds in Backyards
The Top 40 Bird Songs are from bird calls mostly around Sydney. This collection from Fred Van Gessel will enable you to learn and identify these bird calls.
Participate in quizzes, find out about Birds in Schools, and many other projects.
Atlas of Living Australia
The Atlas of Living Australia allows you to search for any species by name. The archive holds millions of records, including images, information and sound recordings. The Atlas of Living Australia can help you to find out where animals might live and you can join citizen science projects.
Australian King Parrot male. Photo: Tony Hudson. Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.
Off track ABC Radio National
Off Track by ABC Radio National focusses on recording animals in the wild. There are excellent programs you can listen to where scientists discuss the calls made by different animals. It can be calming to listen to their nature sound recordings.
Nature Soundmap
An incredible library of soundscapes with descriptions of animals within an ecosystem and landscape from Nature Soundmap.
Nature track podcast
Nature Track is a podcast by ABC Radio National which brings you sounds of the Australian wilderness.
BirdLife Australia
Check out BirdLife's collection of resources for different regions in NSW to help you identify birds, including this colourful poster.
Powerful owls are our largest owl species. They are vulnerable in NSW. They need large tree hollows to nest and raise their chicks.
Rainbow lorrikeets are highly social animals. This one is looking for nectar. They need tree hollows for homes.
Greater egrets live in wetlands. They wade through shallow water and fish for small aquatic animals.