These are birds I hear around Grand Island, on my porch, along the Platte, and on drives in the country with Arthur. There are no recordings here. I have only my words. When you hear one of these birds, I hope you will think, "That old man was right." Or at least, "That old man was close."

Where people have made up words to fit a song, I have given them. Birders have been doing that for a hundred years. It is how I learned, and it is how I teach Tara.

They are in no particular order, except the first one, which is first for good reason.

1. Western Meadowlark
Our state bird, and rightly so. It sits on a fence post and pours out a song like water going down a stone creek: a few clear whistles, then a tumbling, gurgling run of notes that drops at the end. The Eastern meadowlark looks almost the same but sings a few plain, sweet whistles instead. The Western sings as if it has more to say.

2. Sandhill Crane
A loud, rolling, wooden rattle, something like a stick dragged along a picket fence, but deeper and with a trumpet in it. One crane is remarkable. Ten thousand on the Platte at dawn in March is the finest sound on God's earth. You can hear them high overhead long before you could have seen them, even with good eyes.

3. American Robin
The first singer in the morning, often before there is any light at all. A cheerful caroling of short phrases, rising and falling, with little pauses: "cheerily, cheer-up, cheerily, cheer-up." In the evening it scolds the cat with a sharp "tut-tut-tut."

4. Northern Cardinal
Loud, clear whistles, repeated, as if he is calling a dog: "birdy, birdy, birdy" or "cheer, cheer, cheer." The female sings too, which surprises people. When it is unhappy it says "chip" like two small stones knocked together.

5. Black-capped Chickadee
It says its name: "chick-a-dee-dee-dee," and it says it loudest at the cat. In late winter the males whistle two clear notes, the second lower than the first: "fee-bee." That whistle is the first promise of spring.

6. Blue Jay
A loud, harsh "jay! jay!" like a rusty pump handle with an opinion. Jays also make a soft, bell-like call, and they can imitate a hawk well enough to fool me. When the jays are quiet all at once, look up. Or have someone look up for you.

7. Mourning Dove
A soft, sad cooing: "coo-AH, coo, coo, coo." People call me every spring to say they have an owl. It is a dove. When a dove takes off, its wings make a whistling flutter that sounds like a rusty spring.

8. Red-winged Blackbird
From the top of a cattail, a gurgling, rattling "conk-la-ree!" with a trill at the end. The first ones come back to the marshes in February or March while there is still ice, and when I hear the first one, I know I have made it through another winter.

9. Yellow-headed Blackbird
The worst song in North America, and I say that with love. It sounds like a rusty gate being opened by somebody who is choking. A few strangled clucks and then a long, grinding buzz. They live in the cattail marshes. You will not mistake them for anything else.

10. Common Grackle
A short, squeaky, rasping "kesh-eek," like somebody stepping on a toy. A flock of them in a tree in the fall sounds like a hundred unoiled hinges.

11. House Wren
A little brown bird with a big voice. It bubbles and rattles and tumbles over itself, a long, fast, joyful jumble of notes, over and over from dawn to dark. When something bothers it, a dry, scolding chatter. The one in my lilac has been nesting in the same birdhouse, or his children have, since Ruth hung it up.

12. Baltimore Oriole
Rich, clear, flute-like whistles, in short phrases, no two songs quite alike, as if it is making it up as it goes. Also a dry chatter. For a dozen years or so the bird books called it the Northern Oriole. Now it is the Baltimore again. The bird did not notice either way.

13. Western Kingbird
Sharp "kip" and "whit" notes and a squeaky, bickering chatter. Kingbirds sit on the telephone wires along the country roads in summer and pick fights with hawks ten times their size. I admire them.

14. Killdeer
It shouts its own name: "kill-DEER, kill-DEER," high and shrill and worried. You will hear it over a gravel parking lot, a ball field, a plowed field, often at night in the spring. If it sounds very upset, you are probably near its nest. Step carefully.

15. Upland Sandpiper
From a fence post in the grassland, the best whistle you ever heard: a long, rising, bubbling "whip-WHEEEE-ooo," like a boy whistling at a pretty girl, but sadder. My father called them "prairie pigeons." I never knew why.

16. Northern Bobwhite
A clear, rising whistle that says its own name: "bob-WHITE!" Sometimes "bob-bob-WHITE!" In the fall the covey calls back and forth to gather up in the evening. I have whistled back to them all my life and once in a while one answers.

17. Ring-necked Pheasant
The rooster gives a loud, harsh, two-part crow, "KAW-kawk!", then beats his wings in a quick drumroll. When you flush one, it goes up with a racket of wings and squawks that has frightened many a hunter worse than it frightened the bird.

18. Greater Prairie-Chicken
In April, before sunrise, the males gather on their booming grounds and make a low, hollow, moaning sound, like blowing across the top of a jug, three notes at a time, over and over, along with cackles and whoops. Arthur drove me up into the Sandhills to hear them two springs ago. I sat in the truck with the window down and grinned like a fool.

19. Great Horned Owl
Deep, soft hoots in a rhythm: "hoo, hoo-HOO, hoo, hoo." Often a pair calls back and forth, the male's voice lower. They nest in the dead of winter, January and February, so on a cold, still night in the new year, listen for them.

20. Eastern Screech-Owl
A little owl with a voice like a ghost horse: a quavering, descending whinny. It also makes a long, even trill on one note. Despite its name, it hardly ever screeches. It lives in town more than people know.

21. Common Nighthawk
On summer evenings over town, a nasal "peent" from high in the air. In courtship the male dives straight down and pulls up at the bottom, and the air through his wings makes a sudden deep "vroom" like a car going by. The first time Tara heard one, she ducked.

22. Barn Swallow
A long, happy twittering, with a little grating rattle in it, from the eaves and the wires and the barn doors. Also a sharp "vit, vit" as it swoops past your head. Nobody is ever unhappy around barn swallows.

23. Purple Martin
From the martin house on its pole, a rich gurgling and chortling and croaking, like a bubbling pot. They are the first birds of the morning in the neighborhood after the robin. My neighbor keeps a martin house and I have been invited, more or less, to share it.

24. Chimney Swift
A high, fast chittering, coming down from the sky over downtown on summer evenings, as they sweep around in bunches. My old depot had a chimney full of them. I could hear them settling in at dusk while I closed up.

25. House Sparrow
"Cheep. Cheep. Cheep." Endlessly. It is not much of a song, but the house sparrow has never pretended otherwise, and it was always the first bird at the depot in the morning, waiting for crumbs.

26. American Goldfinch
It sings while it flies, in a bouncing, dipping line, and the song goes with the bounce: "po-ta-to-chip, po-ta-to-chip." On a branch it sings a long, sweet, canary-like warble.

27. Dickcissel
In summer, from a fence wire along every country road, a dry, buzzy, stuttering "dick, dick, ciss-ciss-ciss." It sings in the heat of the day when everything else has quit. Ruth called it "the little farmer," because it works in the afternoon.

28. Eastern Bluebird
A soft, low, warbling "tur-a-lee, tur-a-lee," gentle as somebody humming in the next room. You have to listen for it. It is worth listening for.

29. Brown Thrasher
A long, loud song of short phrases, and it says each one twice: "plant-a-seed, plant-a-seed, cover-it-up, cover-it-up, pull-it-up, pull-it-up." That doubling is how you know it.

30. Gray Catbird
A thin, complaining "mew" from the thicket, exactly like a lost kitten. And a long jumbled song of squeaks and whistles that, unlike the thrasher's, never repeats. I have fooled more than one cat-lover's grandchild with this bird.

31. Northern Flicker
A loud, long, laughing "wick-wick-wick-wick-wick" that carries across a whole park. Also a sharp "klee-yer." In the spring it drums on gutters and stovepipes to make the most noise it can. It is a woodpecker with no shame.

32. Downy Woodpecker
A small, sharp "pik," and a rattling whinny that runs downhill. And a soft, quick drumming on a dead branch. It is a little bird that sounds like a little bird.

33. Red-bellied Woodpecker
A rolling, gargling "kwirr" or "churr," loud and a bit grumpy. It comes to my suet feeder and complains about the quality.

34. White-breasted Nuthatch
A nasal, tooting "yank, yank," like a tin horn from a dime store. You will hear it coming down a tree trunk headfirst, which it does, being a nuthatch.

35. Canada Goose
A deep, two-note "ha-RONK" from a flock overhead, sometimes so high I could not have seen them even when my eyes were good. I still stop on the sidewalk to listen every time, the way I did when I was a boy.

36. Snow Goose
Higher and more yelping than a Canada goose, a busy barking "whouk, whouk," and in March there can be a great many of them in the Rainwater Basin south of here, so many that the sound is like a crowd at a football game.

37. Song Sparrow
A sweet, bright song that starts with three or four clear notes and then runs into a trill. The old words for it are "maids, maids, maids, put on your tea-kettle-ettle-ettle." I hear them most along the river in April.

38. Red-eyed Vireo
In the cottonwoods by the river in summer, short phrases all day long, with a pause between each, like somebody asking and answering: "Here I am. Where are you? Over here. See me?" It never stops. In July, when the other birds have gone quiet, the vireo is still asking.

39. Red-tailed Hawk
A hoarse, falling scream: "keee-ARRR." This is the sound the moving pictures use for every hawk and eagle on the screen, whatever bird is really in the shot. Now you know.

40. Horned Lark
In winter, on the gravel roads, a thin tinkling song, high and quick, like little bells, and soft "tsee" notes as a flock lifts off the road ahead of the car. It is a lonely, pretty sound for a cold country morning. I can only just hear it now. I am glad I still can.

There are others I know. These are the forty I would want you to learn first, if you live where I live.

If you are losing your sight and you love birds, please do not put your field glasses in a drawer for a year the way I did. Go out on the porch. Close your eyes if it helps. They are all still there.