Recently in Bird Songs Category

Yesterday I shot about 16 minutes of video, which was mostly just a nest cavity with little spurts of activity. This has been edited down to the video linked below, which is a little over 1.5 minutes. The Mountain Bluebird chicks are being fed by mom in the first segment (brief glimpse of a chick just before she arrives at about 5 seconds), then dad in the third. In the middle segment (which begins at about 35 seconds and ends at 1:20) it looks like one of the chicks is exercising its wings, the end of the wing visible fluttering about in the cavity. Things to listen for include a Grace's Warbler shortly after the beginning, then off and on throughout the clips (there's also a couple of occasional faint buzzes from a Western Wood-pewee in this segment). At about 27 seconds a Mountain Chickadee can be heard, faint Pygmy Nuthatches at about 48 seconds, Common Raven (clearly!) at about 1:07, and a Western Tanager just before the male shows up in the 3rd clip.

The audio file is about 3 minutes long, also starts with a Grace's Warbler, then some faint chirps from a Red Crossbill that are followed soon after by the same type of chirp, though much louder (at about 19 or 20 seconds). Beginning at around 1 minute the cacophony begins, with constant bantering among the crossbills for the next 2 minutes, increasing at about the 2 minute mark. This actually goes on for nearly 6 minutes total in my raw file, but I think you'll more than get the picture in 3 minutes. There are other bird sounds mixed in, especially the Grace's.

For the Mountain Bluebird video (Flash, 11 megs) click here . . .

To listen to the Red Crossbills (.mp3, 3 megs) click here . . .

This morning I took a few minutes before my busy day gets started (Bryce Canyon's Astronomy Festival begins) to record some more bird song. I had a Plumbeous Vireo nearby that got me going and a few more birds soon joined in the party. The recording begins with the vireo then, at about 19 seconds are some very faint "metallic" chips from a Grace's Warbler. It isn't long before he begins to sing and will be heard almost all the way through. At 59 seconds he lands in a tree about 30 feet from the microphone and gets quite loud in comparison to the previous calls. Some Red Crossbills fly into the area and can be heard shortly afterwards. At 1:27 the Grace's is chipping again, then at 2:05 a Broad-tailed Hummingbird is heard buzzing around, and at 2:20 some Pygmy Nuthatches are faintly heard. The constant chatter through the last portion of the recording is the crossbills bantering back and forth. Total time is about three minutes and the mp3 file is about 3.5 megs.


Plumbeous Vireo & More

Red Crossbills have been hanging around the area a lot of late and one thing I've learned is they seem to be able to make a number of different noises. I managed to capture a couple of them this morning, the first just a series of chirps, while the second is 3 chirps followed by a series of alternating "buzzes" (best description I can think of). They've got some other sounds as well - one pretty odd that I can't begin to describe - but need to work a little more to capture them.

This recording is edited down to about 1:17 and more prominent than the crossbill is the repeated trilling of a Chipping Sparrow, with some occasional chirps from one of the local robins. It starts with a crossbill chirping followed immediately by the sparrow. At about 37 or 38 seconds the crossbill's chirps will be noticeably louder and quickly fade - it left its perch and was flying right overhead. Beginning at 54 seconds, the crossbill's call is 3 short chirps followed by alternating buzzes until the end of the recording. Click on the link below to listen, file is mp3 format and about 1.5 megabytes.

Red Crossbill Sounds