The Singing Life of Birds

Welcome to the home page for Donald Kroodsma's The Singing Life of Birds. The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong with its 98 selections of birdsong on the accompanying CD.

Winner of the 2006 John Burroughs Medal award "for outstanding natural history writing," winner of the 2006 American Birding Association's Robert Ridgway Award for excellence, and identified by Choice Reviews as an Outstanding Academic Title, "The Best of the Best in Published Scholarship"; as featured on the radio, on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, on NPR's and National Geographic's Radio Expeditions, the Leonard Lopate Show, and Kojo Nnamdi Show. And as featured in Audubon Magazine, Scientific American, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Outside Magazine, E Magazine, and elsewhere.

What readers are saying: This book is truly a gem, a a rare marvel, one of the very best bird books I've ever read, one of the best, most enthusiastic and enlightening books about how real science is done, and it reads like a cross between a mystery novel and lovely poetry. Kroodsma, as both scientist and storyteller, takes us repeatedly into the field, into the birds' world. He peels away the mystery of birdsong without casting off its mystique, and will change forever the way each of us listens. This book is an eye-opener, an ear-opener, and a mindblower, a family treasure, a true work of art, a masterpiece, a tour de force, a wonderful gift to the world.