It’s spring and our local pigeons (Columba livia) are prancing in courtship. The males bow and coo to their chosen mates and accompany their ladies in flight. When their courtship is successful the males clap their wings.
You can hear cooing and wing clapping in this audio clip …
Blue jay at Frick Park, January 2023 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
27 February 2023
Spring is coming and blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) are talking about it. In addition to their typical “Jeer!” calls, they now make odd sounds that you might not recognize.
Here are two courtship season sounds, Pumphandle and Rattle, followed by an everyday “Jeer!” (You’ll also hear a crow, white-breasted nuthatch and others in this sound bite.)
Blue jays bob up and down when they make the Pumphandle sound and, according to the Stokes Guide, it “may be directed at other males in a courtship group or a predator.” When it’s directed at a predator it’s a low intensity comment as if to say, “I see you, Hawk, but you’re not threatening yet.”
Rattle calls are made only by females! Vassar’s website says, they’re “a series of rapid clicks that often have one sharp click at the beginning and end of the call, often emitted within a flock, as alert calls, or when another jay intrudes on a pair’s space.”
Seeing is believing. Watch the spring calls and sounds of blue jays in two videos by Lesley The Bird Nerd.
If you heard these sounds without seeing the bird making them, would you think it was a blue jay?
Cloud forest near Alambi Reserve, Pichincha, Ecuador (photo by Kate St. John)
12 February 2023
While listening to birdsong in the cloud forest near Mindo, Ecuador I heard two songs that reminded me of home. Neither bird is colorful. Their songs are beautiful.
As soon as I heard the Andean solitaire (Myadestes ralloides) his voice reminded me of the wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina). The solitaire’s syrinx allows him to harmonize with himself just like a wood thrush and his cadence is similar though his voice is higher. In my field notes I dubbed him “The Wood Thrush of the Andes.” Listen to him below and see what you think.
For comparison, here’s a wood thrush in Schenley Park last spring.
Wood thrush in Schenley Park, 13 May 2022 (video by Kate St. John)
The Ecuadorian thrush (Turdus maculirostris) looks like a large dull-colored American robin (Turdus migratorius) while his song is similar but better. It’s no wonder they are similar, they’re in the same genus. Listen to the Ecuadorian thrush below and see if you agree that he’s the “Robin of the Andes.”
Ecuadorian thrush singing in the rain:
Ecuadorian thrush morning chorus:
For comparison, here’s the spring song of an American robin during the morning chorus.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons, audio from Xeno Canto; click on the captions to see the originals)
If you’re awake one to two hours before dawn on a calm September night, put your ear to the sky and you may hear birds calling overhead in the dark.
Millions of birds migrate at night and call in flight to maintain contact with their fellow travelers. In the one-to-two hours before dawn they begin their descent and are easier to hear but it takes dedication or insomnia to be awake during those prime sleeping hours.
Fortunately with the advent of microphones, recording devices and sonogram technology, ornithologists and amateurs have recorded nocturnal flight calls (NFC) and can identify who’s calling as they fly by. The sonograms are like fingerprints for each species and can be compared at this quick reference website, NocturnalFlightCalls.com, announced this month by Tessa Rhinehart at the University of Pittsburgh’s @KitzesLab.
Many calls, especially those of warblers, are so high-pitched that they are outside my range of hearing so here are three examples of some easily audible nocturnal flight calls.
The Swainson’s thrush (Catharus ustulatus), above, has such a distinctive flight call that you can identify it in the dark by sound. All About Birds describes the call as a hollow peep that resembles the call of a spring peeper frog.
Make your own NFC recorder using a microphone, a dinner plate, a bucket and a computer. Instructions and information at Nemesis Bird’s Night Flight Call primer. (This article may be as old as 2012.)
At this time of year the birds are not singing but you often hear a “chip” note in the woods. It’s not the sound of a bird but instead a chipmunk, making the noise that puts “chip” in his name.
“Chip” is warning sound that means Danger From the Ground. Chip Chip Chip Chip, the speaker is warning of a ground-based predator — a cat, raccoon, snake, etc.
Chipmunks “chip” at different speeds, even during the same chipping session, as seen in the 4.5 minute video below. The tonal quality and variable speed give us a hint that it’s a chipmunk speaking, not a bird.
The second most common chipmunk sound is another warning.
“Tock” means Danger From The Air — a clue that birders should look for a raptor. Tock Tock Tock Tock. Listen and learn in this vintage article.
It was a wonder in 2014 when, after centuries of ornithologists saying that only male birds sing, Karan Odom at University of Maryland documented singing females. Most of the species live in the tropics but even back then 150 female-singing species were documented in North America.
Mockingbirds are also unusual because they sing in autumn when other birds are silent. They do it because they change location. Those that nest in the northern end of their range migrate south while others move locally (see animated eBird map). When mockingbirds “reappear” in September they are singing again to claim new territory.
Males and females look alike and they aren’t paired up in winter so we cannot tell which sex is singing. Nevertheless we can hear them. Here are some examples.
28 Sep 2021 in Cincinnati, Ohio:
7 Nov 2019 in Harlingen, TX:
I see mockingbirds in Pittsburgh in the winter. Are they local transplants or from further north? Are they male or female? I dunno.
Whoosh! Fast moving birds circle, swoop, rise and fall as they eat flying insects. Swallows and swifts move so fast that it’s hard to identify them in flight. With one swift and six swallow species in our area(*) the first step is to decide: “Is that a Swallow or a Swift?“
This stop-action photo by Patrick bx (@bronxfxdc) makes it easy to see the differences described by audubon.org below.
Color: If the bird has any color, it’s a swallow. Chimney swifts are dark brown all over (see top image). Many swallows are colorful or iridescent. Most have white bellies.
Flight style: Chimney swifts flap their stiff wings so fast that they look like they flip on their body axis. Swallows bend their wings as they flap in “swallow-like” flight.
Perched? If the bird is perched or standing on the ground it’s a swallow. Chimney swifts cannot stand on the ground and cannot perch at all except to cling upright inside a chimney.
(photos from Patrick bx (@bronxfxdc) embedded tweet & the Crossley ID Guide to Eastern Birds via Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
The CDC explains that “the most important sounds we hear every day are in the 250 to 6,000 Hertz range.” Fortunately for those with presbycusis, frequencies above the “important” range are the first to go.
In my 40’s I learned to identify birds by ear but my skill has come undone in recent years because some birds, especially warblers, sing above 6,000 Hz. I would not have noticed it except that I go birding with people who hear well and can identify birds by song. They point out birds I cannot hear.
This spring I’ve watched a few warblers open their mouths, vibrate their throats, and say nothing! Can you hear them? Turn up your speakers and test your hearing.
Cape May Warbler, 8250 Hertz: In this 2-second recording the Cape May Warbler (photo at top) sings a single high-pitched trill.
Blackpoll warbler song, 8,000 Hertz:
Blackpoll warbler (photo by Chuck Tague)
The blackpoll sings loudly 4 times in the audio below — at the beginning (3 seconds), end (46 seconds) and at 17 and 31 seconds into the recording. If you don’t hear anything really loud you are not hearing the blackpoll.
Black-and-white warbler, 5500 – 6750 Hertz:
Black-and-white warbler (photo by Chuck Tague)
In this recording the black-and-white warbler sings four notes in quick succession. The loudest parts of his song are at two frequencies: 5500 and 6750. I can hear this warbler if there’s not a lot of background noise. Otherwise no.
Fortunately Cornell Lab has produced a bird identification tool that also functions as a “bird hearing” aid. Download Merlin to your cellphone and use the Sound ID feature. Your phone will hear the birds that you cannot!
p.s. By now my ears have told you my age. How old are your ears? Check out this video which also explains why so many people have age-related hearing loss.
Wood thrushes (Hylocichla mustelina) are back in Schenley Park after their winter sojourn in Central America.
Yesterday this one used his beautiful voice to claim a nesting territory near the Bartlett tufa bridge. Click here or on the screenshot below to hear him sing.
Of all the birds he wins “Best In Song.”
(photo from Wikimedia Commons, video by Kate St. John)
In the spring starlings sing their wiry scratchy songs, punctuated with puttering sounds and embellished with mimicry of other birds. They usually copy their neighbors but like to add the coolest sounds of migrating birds. Starlings tell us what they heard in the past few days and nights.
Have you heard a killdeer call from a city housetop? It’s a starling telling you he heard a killdeer recently. Other examples include.
Mimicking an eastern meadowlark.
Mimicking the Eurasian oystercatcher in Scotland, the starling “calls from a roost in a building after a night of heavy passage of migrant oystercatchers.”
Mimicking his neighbors in Toronto, including American goldfinch and red-tailed hawk at 0:53 – 1:07. He’s so good at it that he fooled my Merlin Bird ID app.
The Future as told by Starlings
“You will see a raptor overhead.”
Starlings make a wiry spitting alarm-call that means “Danger From The Air!” If you hear this call, look up to see a raptor. The starling tells your future. (Note: In this recording from Colorado, the robin-like song in the background is a black-headed grosbeak.)
Bonus Bird ID: The Virtuoso For those of you familiar with birdsong in southern California, this starling in San Diego County will give you a run for your money! It even fooled the Merlin Bird ID app. The recording’s description says. “Much mimicry including Northern Flicker, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Mountain Quail, Mountain Chickadee, California Towhee, Acorn Woodpecker, Killdeer, and perhaps American Kestrel and Common Poorwill.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons, audio embedded from Xeno Canto. Click on the caption links to see the originals)
