Never thought I’d say it, but I finally found a reason to carry an iPod on the trail. I’m not really a “birder,” per se, but southern Arizona in spring time is well known as a birder’s paradise, so some part of me always felt left out.
Here’s the connection.
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has put together the ultimate double CD set, “Birds Songs of Southeastern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.” The collection is over 200 birds strong and really has the region well covered.
Meanwhile, the iPod Nano weighs in at a mere 1.3 ounces and is smaller than a black-capped gnatcatcher. I imported my CD’s into iTunes, then created a Playlist with all the birds in one location, renamed the files - as in “owl spotted” rather than “spotted owl” - then sorted them alphabetically. Then I hired someone to find a photo of each bird on the internet (ok, I did this myself), and imported these into the Playlist as song-level artwork. Finally, dumped the Playlist onto the iPod player.
So when I go to play Track 12, “Gnatcatcher, Black-capped”, I get the bird song along with that bird’s image on the player.
Becoming a certifiable bird geek while on journey should now be as easy as hearing or seeing yonder mystery bird, then taking any hunches to the iPod playlist and rummaging through the list for a match.
Thought this might be a useful idea for any Arizona Trail thru-hikers looking to unleash their inner ornithologist. The long immersion in the natural environment gives thru-hiker types a big advantage in learning the flora and fauna out there.
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