Birding While Hearing-Impaired Is No Longer Impossible
Birding is for everybody — these apps are here to help
I’ll never forget the first time I heard it raining outside of my house. I was eighteen years old and had just received my first pair of hearing aids. Tears ran down my face in coordination with the raindrops cascading down my windows. Much like people who put on glasses for the first time suddenly see everything more clearly, my hearing aids opened the door to a world of sound I had no idea existed.
No hearing loss is exactly the same, with infinite possibilities and combinations that impact how someone hears as much as what someone hears. My hearing loss, for example, is both sensorineural and conductive (mixed hearing loss), and is bilateral, meaning it affects both ears. I have a difficult time hearing low-range sounds, like deep voices, and I also struggle with certain mid-range tones, with some higher frequencies being easier to hear than others.
I started birdwatching with my grandmother when I was about twelve years old, but it wasn’t until I was in early adulthood that I began connecting with other birdwatchers and going on field trips to watch birds. “Birding by ear” — identifying birds by their call or song and not by sight — is a core part of birdwatching. Birding by ear allows you to home-in on a…
