Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Eastern, 4 CD

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The Stokes guides are my favorite comprehensive audio bird guides.

Why?

Well, not only do you hear the friendly voices of Donald and Lillian Stokes themselves, but a location and description are given for each call, usually with examples from different geographical regions.

For example, the Steller's jay track has calls from Washington, Utah, and Arizona, aggressive and rattle calls from Utah, and a red-tailed hawk imitation from Utah. Many birds have regional dialects and inflections, so I appreciate that the Stokes didn't just put east coast recordings ofbirds on their western CD, and vice versa.

The accompanying booklet even gives the month the calls were recorded. As a fledgling nature recordist myself, I marvel at the work that recordists Lang Elliott and Kevin Colver have done to put these guides together.

As the back of the CD says, it has more species, more time per species, and more variety of sounds than any other guide. It's the audio guide I refer to the most.

Review by Alexia Stevens, bird language instructor