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#WildWords, birding, birdwatching, British birds, mnemonic, mnemonic for bird song, ways to remember bird songs, wild words
Mnemonic: Noun; a system such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations which assists in remembering something; from the Greek mnēmonikos, from mnēmōn, meaning ‘mindful’ (Oxford Dictionary).
I’ve found mnemonics particularly useful when trying to remember bird songs. Apart from the very obvious sounds, where the bird is, in fact, named for its song – I’m thinking here of the Chiffchaff and the Kittiwake – there are also some well-known phrases that many birders know, like ‘a little bit of bread and no cheeeeese’ for the song of the Yellowhammer, ‘chissick’ for the Pied wagtail, and ‘teacher, teacher’ for the Great tit. Do you have any bird song mnemonics you can share?

The yellowhammer: ‘a little bit of bread and no cheeeeese’
One of the Song Thrush phrases always sounds to me like “me ‘an you, me ‘an you”, which probably only I can hear 🙂 I still can’t hear ‘a little bit of bread and no cheeeeese’ for the song of the Yellowhammer. I heard its call this evening which sounded a bit like ‘cheeeeese’.
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I haven’t heard enough Yellowhammers to test the mnemonic but they obviously have a thing about ‘cheeeeese’. 😉
Several local chaffinchs seem to end their call with ‘chop suey’ but I haven’t worked out the rest of their menu. 😉
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Most of the birds that visit our garden have their own names depending on their song or behaviour. The thrush is called ‘Chewy Cheese’ because of this… 🙂 I love your yellowhammer…
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I remember all your quirky names for the local critters from your blog. 🙂
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