A quick guide to the birds you’re hearing now in Seattle area

The birds most likely to capture our attention with their songs during early spring in the Pacific Northwest are not migratory visitors, nor exotic strangers, but good old perennial neighbors.

Next month, we’ll get some migrants with beautiful songs, said John Marzluff, a professor of wildlife science at the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, who has written books about crows, ravens and birds in suburbia. “But the ones that are singing now are the ones who are here year-round,” he said.

Here are nine birds to listen for as well as comments from Marzluff:

American robin (their song is familiar, loud and conspicuous)

Dark-eyed junco

Black-capped chickadee (listen for the two-tone mating call as well as the more well-known “chickadee dee dee”)

Pacific wren (“a really, long complex song that is, by far, the prettiest song you would hear right now”)

Bewick’s wren (a relative of the Pacific wren more adapted to urban environments)

American crow

Barred owl

Spotted towhee

Anna’s hummingbird