Listening for the low hiss of a Turkey Vulture in Sandy Bottom Nature Park or the whistling “see-you, see-yeeeer” call of an Eastern Meadowlark in Fort Monroe is one of the best ways to find and identify these and other local birds. Unfortunately, for people with hearing loss, those birds’ calls can feel harder to spot.
Developing hearing loss doesn’t mean you have to give up your favorite hobby. Let’s look at two ways hearing aids can bring your birding adventure back into surround sound.
Binaural Hearing Aids
While it may seem like you hear a noise in both ears simultaneously, sound actually hits the closest ear a fraction of a second before the farthest ear. Although you may not perceive this difference, your brain does; it uses that slight discrepancy to tell you where a sound originates. We call that skill binaural hearing.
Wearing one hearing aid in each ear is the best way to replicate binaural hearing. With both your devices giving you information about the origin of a sound, you will get a better idea of where your favorite bird is perched. All that’s left to do is grab your binoculars, take a look at the singing creature and write it down in your birding journal.
Frequency Shifting
Hearing loss often dulls high-pitched sounds first. With high-frequency hearing loss, you might struggle to hear birds, children’s voices or certain types of music. Luckily, hearing aids can help accommodate your shifting frequency needs. In addition to honing your localization skills, they adjust the frequency of the sound they collect to help you catch the usually high-pitched bird calls.
Schedule Your Hearing Aid Appointment Today
Researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, American Ornithological Society, Avibase, BirdLife International, and International Ornithologists’ Union put together a current and authoritative checklist of the number of birds currently identified. The list includes a whopping 11,131 species of birds, spread across 252 families[1]. That’s a lot of birds to see and hear.
Don’t let hearing loss steal one ounce of your birding joy. We may not be able to find each of the 11,131 species of birds, but we can help you on your way to finding them yourself. Call us at Hampton Roads ENT ~ Allergy today to schedule a hearing aid appointment with one of our specialists.
[1] Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (2025). *AviList: A unified global checklist of the world’s birds*. https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/avilist-unified-global-checklist/