Bird songs and calls

Singing Marsh Wren, Forest Grove, Oregon 2 June 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

Listen. Do you hear it?

No, because this is a photo without sound. But I hear it in my mind.

Here's a link to a sample song of Marsh Wren.

O, what a quiet world this would be without birds! Well, quiet except for human-made sounds. When we think of the sounds of nature, we usually include the calls of birds.

Many birders have trouble identifying bird songs and calls. No wonder; it takes just as much (or more) work than learning to identify birds by sight. And there isn't a workable "field guide" to bird songs and calls.

However, Nathan Pieplow, on the EarBirding blog, wrote this brief guide to
describing what you hear. He writes "How to identify bird sounds in six easy steps." Great stuff.

This gives a framework for describing bird sounds. Even playing a recording of a bird song doesn't help you remember it, if you can't describe it to yourself--if you can't hear it in your own mind when the bird is no longer singing.

Michele, at Northwest Nature Nut recently recorded 50 seconds of audio at the Ridgefield wildlife refuge, in her post:Ridgefield bird songs of May. How many different bird songs and calls can you pick out? I heard 11 species and in the post's comment field recorded the first time I heard each species and the second count of the recording when it calls, so you can compare. Try it!

Bird trip: Fossil, Oregon: June 19, 2011

Here's another birding opportunity.

This is in the very interesting John Day Fossil Beds of north central Oregon.

Greg

---

Paula Fontenot
Volunteer
Oregon Paleo Lands Institute
333 4th Street, Fossil, Oregon 97830
541.763.4480
www.paleolands.org

OPLI Adventure Trip ~ Bluebirds and Other Avian Wonders of the Fossil Area

Sunday, June 19, 2011 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Meet at the OPLI Field Center at 6:00 a.m.

Join naturalist Char Corkran as we peek into nest boxes to see how Western Bluebirds, Mountain Bluebirds, Mountain Chickadees, and House Wrens are faring. Then it’s off to look for American Kestrels and other raptors. Songbirds will be singing, and other avian species of the grasslands, junipers, ponds, and riparian areas will add to our enjoyment of the bird nesting season in this rich and beautiful region. We will end the examining bird skulls and skeletons, and discussing adoptions to varied habitats and lifestyles. Char Corkran, has studied bluebirds in the Fossil, OR area since 1988. Round Trip Transportation available from Portland to Fossil via I-84 (Hood River, The Dalles).

Trip Fee: $85 Adults/ $50 kids under 12
Pre-registration is required. For more information and registration call OPLI at (541)763-4480 or email explore@paleolands.org

Woodpecker weekend: Sisters, Oregon: June 24-26, 2011

Here's an announcement for a fun birding excursion.

My wife and I went 2 years ago and head a wonderful time... and saw lots of woodpeckers and other birds!

Here are posts from my visit to the Woodpecker Wonderland Festival 2 years ago.

I recommend this fun weekend.

Greg

---

Birders,
Drumming up some attention for the upcoming 2011 Woodpecker Weekend! !

East Cascades Audubon Society (ECAS) is bringing a low cost, casual and fun birding weekend to you on June 24, 25, and 26. It will be based in Sisters.

The weekend will be of interest to birders with any level of experience and interest in birds. We will specialize in woodpeckers and 11 are possible here. But we will have a variety of trips to focus on much more than woodpeckers … a Friday trip to Summer lake, Saturday and Sunday trips to a variety of burns, forests and lakes … and early morning trips for dawn chorus and other specialties. All trips will be led by 2 to 3 local birders who are eager to share their enthusiasm for the Central Oregon birds and who have a real knowledge of the local areas and wildlife. Any profits will go to ECAS to fund cool projects to help birds. We are keeping the costs down so anyone can afford to participate. We will car pool on field trips and will have a pizza pot luck instead of a banquet on Saturday p.m. Note that we are limiting registration and use of playback to avoid excessive disturbance to the birds and to fulfill the requirements of our special use permit from the USFS.

So register soon! See the link for more details and for the registration form, found on the ECAS website: http://ecaudubon.org/Projects/WoodpeckerWeekend/tabid/246/Default.aspx

Judy Meredith
jmeredit@bendnet.com

In the woods: Golden-crowned Kinglet

Golden-crowned Kinglet, Cooper Mountain Nature Park, Beaverton, Oregon, 19 March 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

Tiny little balls of fluff, moving nervously through the forest branches.

Sibilant, soft, high-pitched notes from birds unseen in the tree-tops.

Golden-crowned Kinglets.

Was that a haiku? It wasn't meant to be. Just some brief notes I put down to include in my post, to be finished later. But those sentence fragments capture the impression of these common, yet unfamiliar (to many) birds.

I feel privileged that my "over 50" ears can still hear the high frequency songs and calls of Golden-crowned Kinglets. The National Geographic field guide describes the song as an "almost inaudibly high... series of tsee notes accelerating into a trill."

And they are truly tiny. At only 4 inches long, they are the same length, bill tip to tail tip, as Anna's Hummingbird, though the kinglet has a larger body and shorter bill and is about 50% heavier, overall. Still, it is 1-1/2 inches shorter than a Black-capped Chickadee.

These little sprites are tough little birds, though, living on bark beetles, scale insects, aphids and their eggs, year-round in the conifer-covered mountains of the West. Some birds move into the lowland woods in winter. Eastern birds breed in the taiga forests across Canada and barely into northern US, including northern Appalachians, and winter throughout the US.

 

Golden-crowned Kinglet, Cooper Mountain Nature Park, Beaverton, Oregon, 26 January 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

Sexes are similar, though the male has a bit of orange on the crown that is best seen when the crown feathers are raised in agitation.

Those long claws and strong feet are perfect for gleaning insects from the tips of branches. They often hang upside down from branch tips as they search for insects. They may hover-glean, flying in place as they pick at insects.

Constantly on the move in small flocks, they are handsome little birds--a fact only appreciated in these larger-than-life-sized photos of frozen time.

Friday Foto: Black-footed Albatross

Black-footed Albatross, 25 miles off Newport, Oregon, 15 May 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

Found in the Pacific NW only far offshore where they eat squid, the Black-footed Albatross has a 7 foot wingspan. This actually makes them one of the smallest albatrosses in the world!

I organize guided birding boat trips offshore specifically to see these and other seabirds that cannot usually be seen from land in the Pacific NW.

We have discussed Black-footed Albatrosses previously.