I heard voices while walking down the street yesterday. Some of them were the same ones I’d been hearing; others were of old friends I hadn’t heard since the year before. Am I a crazy person?

Perhaps, but what I’m hearing isn’t in my head: it’s all around me!

Local birds all have their own individual voices, each with unique chirps, tweets and hollers. It can be easy to get caught up in the noise of everyday life, but it’s not hard to learn a couple basic birdcalls and meet some new friends.

When many people think of wild places, they often picture mountains or forests with crisp, flowing rivers and calming landscapes. Although those places are wonderful, most of us don’t get to experience them every day.

However, we do end up outside one way or another, even just walking from a parking lot to a building. Just a few minutes are enough time to listen to a song. Birds enjoy living in all types of habitat, including buildings, lawn grass, ponds and trees. There is definitely some music near you.

We just passed through the dead of winter. All the birds have been down south for a while, right? Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to make acquaintances with winter residents!

Plenty of Canada Geese and Mallard ducks live year-round at retention ponds or local lakes. Some groups of these species migrate, but many have found convenient homes in local small water bodies. 

Overhead, you might hear an epic scream and see a rusty tail fly by— a Red-tailed Hawk is on the hunt for a tasty snack. Their calls are the ones used over top of many other onscreen birds of prey, so you can hear them everywhere.

American Crows and Blue Jays are other noisy residents. Despite their differences in color, crows and jays are related. Between the two of them, they make tons of interesting noises. Jays can even imitate the aforementioned red-tailed hawks.

Although not all of them pull out their advanced repertoire until the cold months are gone, Northern Cardinals, Black-Capped Chickadees and White-Breasted Nuthatches often call to each other from trees and bushes. The bright “what-cheers” and “birdies” of the Northern Cardinal match their striking red plumage, and even females get in on the song. Chickadees’ calls serve them well, as they say their own name – “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” everywhere they go. Nuthatches can be identified from their nasal “ern” calls and their upside-down posture on tree trunks. Some other sounds you hear may not be songs at all! Woodpeckers, especially Red-bellied, Downy and Hairy ones, are common all year long and their drums can be heard walking through areas with more mature trees.

Now that the days are getting longer and the weather warmer, spring migrants are starting to come through Iowa. Overhead, high-pitched honks may indicate groups of migrating Greater White-fronted or Snow Geese. The red-breasted American Robin begins many days with a “cheery-up, cheerily” song before they set out finding worms in the grass. Robins also employ a variety of one-syllable scolding and alarm calls. Male Red-winged Blackbirds have also arrived to stake out optimal territories before potential mates show up. They can often be found on the marshy banks of retention ponds or even in young suburban trees, making themselves known with brash “conk-a-reeeeee”s. Another spring arrival is the Killdeer, who also announces its own name with a high-pitched call as it scurries around open grasslands and shows off its black collar or rusty rump. One species we won’t be hearing for much longer is the Dark-Eyed Junco, a winter resident who will depart within the coming weeks. The Junco’s simple trills and “dit”s will be headed further north to spend their summer there, but not before flashing us their white outer tail feathers as they say goodbye.

Would you look at that—so many friendly voices are in our neighborhoods and cities! The relaxing sounds of birds singing don’t only have to be relegated to “soothing sounds” tapes or trips to the mountains. We can use our daily time outside to create our own sanctuaries as we go about our busy urban lives. Before, you might not have believed that so much music was going on right outside our doors, but we don’t have to go very far to listen.