For the Birds Radio Program: European Bird Recordings, and Baker's Blue Jay Video Games
Laura made the jump from records to compact disks, and now has a cassette recording of some European birds. And Jim Baker recommends Baker’s Blue Jay Video Games.
Transcript
The recordings I use on For the Birds have always come from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Library of Sounds. I used to take them off records that accompany the Peterson Field Guides, with a few special songs from records but Donald J. Borror, but this fall I arrived at the cutting edge of bird recording technology when I started using the newest Peterson album, on CD.
Together, these recordings have sounds from more than 500 bird species, but they have one serious drawback—they don’t include sounds from birds of other continents. That isn’t until I blew a big wad of my family’s discretionary income to buy a cassette set called “The Bird Walker,” a dictionary of bird songs from Britain, Europe, and northern Africa, published by a non-profit bird group in France.
Now at last you can hear birds like the Corn Crake—it’s a little wading bird from Europe whose name I always liked because it made me think of Kellogg’s Corn Crakes.
If you’ve ever wondered about the quarrel between Romeo and Juliet the morning after their hasty marriage, when they argued about the identity of the bird sitting outside their window, you can now decide who was right. Romeo claimed the bird was a lark. But Juliet insisted it was a nightingale.
I’ve always wondered what a Robin Redbreast sounds like.
Jenny Wren is really the same species as our Winter Wren.
The European Cuckoo inspired the cuckoo clock. Did the original Black Forest clockmaker have a bit of an imagination? Now you can decide.
And at last, when we sing a song of sixpence, we’ll know what four and twenty blackbirds really sound like.
Yes, at long last we have on tape the recordings of 352 species from across the ocean. Of course, we have to come back to North America to hear the sound of our good old Blue Jay.
This is Jim Baker. Everyone knows that Blue Jays are Nature’s Perfect Bird—they combine all the brains of their close relatives, the crows and ravens, with beauty, a sense of humor, and a perky little crest. But if they’re ever going to make it in this high-tech age of computers, your Blue Jays need help. And what better introduction to computers can you give them than Baker’s Blue Jay Video Games?
Yep–there’s dozens of varieties to choose from, including such favorites as Super Mario Nestlings and Duck Hunter Hunt. Let your favorite little jays test their skills of logic with my exclusive Beak Tracy Crimestopper Game. And encourage their eye-claw coordination with Owl Blaster. Yep—this Christmas kill two birds with one stone. Give your jays a present filled with year-long Christmas cheer and make them competitors in the 90s at the same time, with Baker’s Blue Jay Video Games, available only at Baker’s Blue Jay Barn. Batteries sold separately.