There are a number of bird songs whose melodic phrases seem to fit remarkably well to English words, such as the "Teacher, teacher, teacher" of the Ovenbird and the "Quick three beers" of the Olive-sided Flycatcher. These words, whose rhythmic cadence fits the song, help us to distinguish and remember these bird songs.
The attempt to create phrases for all bird song has not been successful in most cases, and have given us constructions like "per-chick-o-ree", which in itself may be harder to remember than the song, and certainly seems to defy identification of the bird before being told that it's an American Goldfinch.
Nevertheless, authors over the years have proposed many phrases to describe the songs of almost all the birds of North America. For the birds in this CD-ROM, these can be found in the topic "The Common Birds that Sing", under the Aspect "Song".
The birds in this category include only those who sing phrases which are in English words and seem to have universal agreement in terms of the fit to the bird song.
There are 20 birds you can easily hear and identify who have Songs with Words. The following is a list, in American Ornithologists' Union order, of these birds:
