birds

A pair of cool introductory entries from the BirdNote podcast for the auditory birder, not to mention general outdoor folk wondering who’s screeching at them on the trail.

Bird Sound Types and Qualities Part I

What words do experienced birders use to describe the sounds of birds? There’s “whistle” to describe the Quick, three beers call of the Olive-sided Flycatcher. And the “rattle” of the Belted Kingfisher. The Dark-eyed Junco delivers an almost perfect “trill,” while the House Wren—like this one—lets go a “cascade.” Experts at birding-by-ear call the Downy Woodpecker’s song a “whinny.”

Bird Sound Types and Qualities Part II

Birding by ear is a great way to identify birds. Listen for qualities of the sound as well as the pattern. Western Meadowlarks have a song that is “liquid” and “clear.” Quite a contrast to the “dry” notes of this Chipping Sparrow often found in the same habitat. The Spotted Towhee has a “metallic” quality to its trill, while the Purple Finch uses a “sweet” and “slurred” cadence. The American Dipper belts out a “ringing” song.

Well, 35 million years ago, anyhow. Interestingly, they would have been roaming around a desert, which calls into question their original development being in a cold climate. At National Geographic, “Giant Penguins Once Roamed Peru Desert, Fossils Show”,

The new study describes two new species of penguins from fossils, including the first complete skull from an ancient giant penguin.

That species, which the authors say lived in Peru about 36 million years ago, is the third largest penguin known and stood about 4.5 feet (1.5 meters) tall.

The other, dating to 42 million years, was about three feet (a meter) tall, which is comparable to the today’s second largest living penguin, the king penguin.

There’s something wonderful about a story that starts off like this:

Freaky Beaky the blue tit owes his life to a diet of bread and dripping.

That sounds like the beginning of a children’s book. :) The story is on the BBC website this morning, “Freaky Beaky’s love of dripping”.

The bird, seen in Hampshire, England, has an abnormally sized beak: 1 inch long, which is gigantic on a four-inch bird. It wasn’t able to eat normally either, having trouble with the usual blue tit fare. A home owner saw this happening and puzzled out what to do.

She tried putting some wholemeal bread fried in beef dripping into the feeder, and was delighted when Freaky Beaky kept coming back for more.

A “bird expert” takes up the story:

Andre Farrar, spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said: “Blue tits normally have short, powerful, stubby beaks that allow them to pick up insects, seeds and berries but this one clearly has a gross deformity which means he can only eat out of the side of his beak.

A Discovery News article today has the story of nuthatches that have apparently learned to interpret the calls of another bird, the chickadee.

It’s not unusual for one animal to react to the alarm call of another, but nuthatches seem to go beyond that — interpreting the type of alarm and what sort of predator poses a threat. When a chickadee sees a predator, it issues warning call — a soft “seet” for a flying hawk, owl or falcon, or a loud “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” for a perched predator.

There is some question about the methodology of the study that reached these conclusions, but whatever the case it looks to warrant further investigation.

One orinthologist commenting on the story mentioned a sneaky tactic by one variety of chickadee:

…black-capped chickadees have been known to produce false alarm calls, causing other birds to fly away, leaving the cheating chickadees to enjoy a food source by itself.

Smart birds. :)

February 3rd, 2007. A couple of hours before my bike accident.

Click for larger. Cameraphone shot. Here it is zoomed in a bit.