Mystery bird: the answer and the Pyrenees part 1

Last blog post I gave a sound recording of a mystery bird in the Pyrenees. I've got some reactions, mostly typical species from the higher mountains. I can imagine, as we live in the Netherlands, that we don't have that much experience with those species, but this species is actually a Dutch breeding species! Agreed, not a common one, but still!
It was the call of a Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe libanotica)! (Libanotica is surprisingly lighter than the nominate!) I'm totally unsure when the sound is given, I thought begging, but the bird was not a juvenile and other recordings (only a few!) were made for example in April, way to early for juveniles! At first I thought that it had to be specific for this subspecies, but it was also recorded in the Netherlands (by Herman van Oosten). So it must be a rather rare call.



As I said: I've spended my holidays in the Spanish Pyrenees. Hiking, landscapes, birds, butterflies, grasshoppers, plants, lots of fun and lots of friends, thé recipy for an amazing holiday. This time I had to choose what to do. You cannot go for a long hike if you want to watch butterflies or record birds, so every day was different. In total I made about 300 (after selection) pictures and 100 sound recordings (also grasshoppers, still working on them..). All of my Dutch observations and recordings are added to the online database waarneming.nl. Foreign observations and recordings are put on the international equivalent observado.org. Untill recently most of the observations of the latter are done by Dutch observers on holidays, by now more and more observers are putting observations in the database! Wonderfull! I've added all of my sound recordings on observado.org as well (http://observado.org/user/sounds/1246) and for 10 species it was the first recording, yay!

The first week we stayed at Benasque, a small village especially crowded in winter. As the first week in a new country is rather overwhelming, we made quite some hikes and it was windy all the time or there was a stream that ruined the recording. So, I did not manage to make a lot of recordings. When I hear a singing Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra curvirostra) I'm always amazed by the power, melody and variety between birds and populations. Here a bird from Spain, no idea of the type..


One of my targets, Citril Finch (Carduelis citrinella) was heard and seen flying frequently, but the calls were very soft and the birds are very shy.. Ridiculous how difficult they were to see and hear.. Still managed to make a short recording of the (sub?)song, it reminded me of the song of Reed Warbler..


In the mountains I'm always amazed by the melodious calls and songs of Alpine Chough's (Pyrrhocorax graculus graculus) given in stunning flight shows! It seems that they fly just for fun and showing of. My friends and I are struggling to climb that mountain and of course an Alpine Chough is challenging us by flying up and down the mountain with ease...


This where the bird recordings of the first week. The second week we spent time in the Sierra de Guarra, a more quiet area with higher numbers of species and individuals, so more recordings comming up! As said before, I also made several recordings of grasshoppers. Still working on them, but I will spend a blog post on them as well later on.

Pre-listen from the Pyrenees: mysterybird

From the 7th until the 24th of July I had my holiday in the Spanish Pyrenees with the JNM. Of course I made sound recordings and currently I'm working on them. In the meantime I have a mystery bird that I want to share with you! Eventually we succeeded in locating the sound and thus the species, but we never heard it before. Do you know which species it is only by the sound?



Some hints of the location: open areas without trees and with a lot of rocks. Mainly above 1800 meters, but also one time at 400 meters!

'God put a smile upon my face'

In the night of 11-12 June, a midnight 'piepje' (message) announced a calling Little Crake (Porzana parva) in the Weerribben in Overijssel. During the afternoon a plan was made to go for the bird in the evening as we never heard it before and because Alwin is quite busy with a big year. In the meantime, another Western Bonelli's Warbler (Phylloscopus bonelli) was discovered near Arnhem. It's a rather good species for June. The plans were changed last minute once again. Toy picked me up to go for the warbler and we eventually would meet Alwin and Joep somewhere for carpooling.
The Bonelli's Warbler wasn't that difficult to find and identify. Short strophes and an nice 'v' instead of a '^' (checked beforehand on recordings ;) ). When it started calling it became even more easy. I was quite happy with recording the call, didn't hear the last one calling and during my first one I didn't have a recorder yet (I was so jealous of Sander Bot and decided to buy one myself). So a first recording for me!


And of course a recording of the song. Note the second strophe: it shortly introduces the song by calling.


In the meantime it became clear that Alwin was having a diner, so we would meet him at the Crake. We arrived at 21:45 and when walking to the spot, we already got some 'got him' messages! From quite a distance we heard the bird calling. Apparently, my microphone made an impression and immediately the group became silent when I started recording. According Pieter Doorn, my face was priceless when the bird started calling and continued in singing. A big smile appeared on my face, what an amazing sound! Among nocturnal birdsounds, this is absolutely 1 or 2 of the list, competing with Thrush Nightingale.
Note the change in call type when the bird is proceeding into singing:


I made a short walk along the cycle track and heard Common Pochards (Aythya ferina) calling. Never heard it this clear and consious. However, the calls were really weak, so the recording is not that good.


By the way: thanks for all the nice (personal) comments on recordings, I really appreciate that :)
  

Arctic vs Common Terns

Before I really start, thanks for all the comments on the last blog post on Marsh, Melodious and Icterine Warbler. As a result these notes: be aware of 'slow' Marsh Warblers as they can resemble Melodious quite good and be aware that Melodious can have tick's as well. The recording I made yesterday from a Melodious Warbler in the Netherlands shows ticks, but really is a Melodious (plumage, rest of song). Note that the ticks sound different and are really part of the imitation.


Yesterday (Saturday 2th of June) Toy and me were bird watching with our main goal: moth ticks. As there is an Iceland Gull in Westkapelle, we had to go there. It's a MEGA for June :D. We first 'did' a Common Merganser, dipped the Bufflehead, scored Red Knot (shame on me), ticked Arctic Tern for the year list (more later), hit-and-run for the European Shag and straight to the Iceland Gull. We found out that there was still a Whooper Swan in 't Vroon and ticked it. Ah well, I ticked 10 species for my month list :D


More about the Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea). We were driving along the Flauwers Inlaag (near Zierikzee) with our windows open, when I heard Arctic Terns. You might think 'heard'? I know it as the day of yesterday. It was on Texel on the second of May 2009, a beautiful day, perfect birding weather. No, bulls#@#. At least some of it. It was that day that I noticed a different call in the tern-colony. Looked where the sound was coming from and it turned out to be an Arctic Tern. Since that day I am able to identify Arctic Terns by their call. As with my last blogpost, I was thinking about how to describe the differences in calls. To me, Arctic Terns always sound higher pitched and sharper than Common Tern, more 'kie' than 'kah'  and more 'krieeee' than 'kieerâh'. I made sonograms of the different calls and compared them to Common Terns.

The comparison in structure:

The difficult three: Marsh, Icterine and Melodious Warblers

When I was listening to recordings of Melodious Warblers (Hippolais polyglotta) in the Netherlands last week, I realised I didn't really knew handy tricks to distinguish it from Icterine (Hippolais icterina) and (especially) Marsh Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris) on sound only. Yesterday I received the question whether one recording showed a Marsh or a Melodious Warbler. So I dived into the matter. Listened to many recordings on Xeno-Canto.org, noted my thoughts on songs and tried to describe the differences between them. With the risk of making 'mistakes', here my notes (I'm not affraid to make mistakes, so please give comments!):

Marsh Warbler:
Very good imitations, surprisingly often with short 'tick'/'teck'/'zip' notes between other notes. Very upbeat pace and general sounds a little bit mechanistic. Starts sometimes with a Bluethroat-like 'tik tik tik tik tik' and then starts the waterfall of imitations with forementioned 'tick' notes.

Here a recording of Sander Bot on XC. Note the mechanical sound, 'tick' notes and the upbeat pace:


Melodious Warbler:
Clear imitations with clear tones. Imitations often have a longer timespan than in Marsh Warblers. Starts often with 'tretretretretre' or 'tr tr tr tr tr' and then the 'real' song. Pace still quit fast, but because of the clear tones it sounds rather melodious (could that explain the name? ;-) ). Sounds a bit like Blackcap and/or Whitethroat.

As example a recording of Jordy Calvet on XC:


Icterine Warbler:
Very typical for Icterine are the nasal tones which can resemble toys (the type you give to your dog or for in bath). Pace is more relaxed than in Melodious and Marsh.

An example from Icterine by Patrik Åberg (a recordist with many good recordings!). Note the quite awesome imitation of Rosefinch (around 45 seconds) and ofcourse the bath ducks:

As said: please give comments if you feel like I am on the wrong end or if you have additions!

And as a bonus a picture of Melodious Warbler made by Toy Janssen, the guy that learned me watching birds. Visit his site for more pictures during his/our adventures (www.globalbirding.com)