Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Wayne Petersen and I direct the Massachusetts
Audubon Society's Important Bird Areas Program for Massachusetts. Today, we're here at the
Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield, Massachusetts. And, we're going to be talking
about the equipment needed to get one started in birding. Another piece of technology that can be
dutifully applied to your interest in birds and birdwatching, is the tape recorder. And, the tape
recorder can be something specifically of this sort which is now somewhat dated in that it's using
cassettes, but it is and was at one time, a very practical way of not only playing tapes, preexisting
recorded tapes of birds, but also with a microphone, a hand held microphone, actually taping bird
songs. But, I think today, increasingly people are going to the more compact iPod type devices
where it's possible to download bird songs from either the internet or various commercially available
sources, and put them on very small hand units that can be used sometimes with simply an ear plug
to listen to songs to help you remember what they are, to recognize them. Or in some cases, if they
are properly used, it's possible to play a recording of a song of a bird. And, sometimes the bird will
be drawn to the recorder and give you a look at it. A caveat to this is that remember that birds
respond to their own songs or songs of their species oftentimes in a territorial way. And it's
important not to be disruptive or to overuse this approach to the use of tapes and tape sounds. But,
in general, I would say that a small recorder or an iPod device that allows you to have a selection of
bird songs can be very useful as a way to help you remember songs and also in some cases to get
better looks a birds that may be otherwise rather shy and retiring.
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