Birdsong was a lifelong fascination for Messiaen and became an increasingly integrated component of his compositions from the 1950s onwards. The list of birds below serves as a guide to the seventy-seven birds featured in Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956–1958), to be performed in its entirety at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology on Saturday, March 7. When comparing Messiaen’s transcriptions to the original birdsong, one should keep in mind that, within a single species of bird in the same region, no two birds sing alike, and since Messiaen collected his birdsong in the 1950s, the way those same species sing today may differ from what he heard. What remains the same is the quality of the bird’s voice and certain distinctive melodic gestures.