A while back, I asked in a blog post whether Violet-green Swallows sing — and I answered that they do, because they produce complex repeating strings of stereotyped syllables. Now it’s time to ask the same question of the poor, misunderstood Evening Grosbeak.
The AOU’s North American Checklist Committee has posted a set of proposals currently under consideration. The biggest surprise is a proposed split of Mountain Chickadee into two new species, partly on the basis of vocalizations — but I’m rather skeptical of the reported differences.
Trumpeter and Tundra Swans present a consistently underrated identification challenge in North America. However, the two species sound quite distinct, and voice can be a good way to identify them.
The more I study phonetic transcriptions, the more convinced I become that, even though the people writing the transcriptions may be completely unaware of it, their choice of vowels almost always follows a consistent set of rules for indicating the pitch and inflection of the bird sound.
Ian Cruickshank of Victoria, BC sent me a remarkable recording of a very confused Song Sparrow, which seems to be incorporating the complete song of a Northern Waterthrush into its own singing.
I was astonished to find that the current scientific literature says that Violet-green Swallows don’t sing at all. It struck me as unlikely, so I went looking through my collection of Violet-green Swallow recordings.
Although it’s a bit of a stretch from what this blog is normally about, this is too good not to post.
The AOU checklist committee recently rejected a proposal to split the Curve-billed Thrasher into two species: the “Palmer’s” Thrasher (palmeri group) in Arizona and West Mexico, and the nominate or “Eastern” Curve-billed Thrasher (curvirostre group) in the rest of the bird’s range.
I drew up a brief list of equipment recommendations for those who would like to get into sound recording. I had long hesitated to do this, because I’m really not a gearhead at all – I basically know just enough about audio recording equipment to use it properly. But requests for gear recommendations are probably the single most common question that I field, and I felt it would be of use to readers if I posted the resulting info to my blog.
I’ll admit I was crushed when Nathan wrote a feature for xeno-canto before I did. I have no one to blame but myself; it was pure laziness on my part that kept me from doing one. After I got over the bruised ego from him being first I got my act in gear and wrote one of my own.