{"id":4819,"date":"2014-09-22T18:16:07","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T00:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/?p=4819"},"modified":"2015-03-09T10:26:24","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T16:26:24","slug":"bohemian-rhapsody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/archives\/4819","title":{"rendered":"Bohemian Rhapsody"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bohemian<\/a>
Bohemian Waxwing, Nabesna Road, Alaska. These chicks were approximately 10-12 days old when this photo was taken, and weren’t shy about making some noise! \u00a9 Andrew Spencer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I can still remember the first time I saw a waxwing. \u00a0I had only been birding for a year or two, and I had already picked out Cedar Waxwing as one of my most wanted birds. \u00a0I was six at the time, and I did most of my birding with my grandmother, either on Long Island (where I lived at the time) or in western Massachusetts (where she had her house). \u00a0We had searched for waxwings several times, to no avail, so I was overjoyed when I first laid eyes on them.<\/p>\n

It took far longer for me to come to grips with their larger cousins, Bohemian Waxwing. \u00a0By then I knew enough to pay attention to how birds sounded, and I can still remember the high-pitched, tinkling trill they let out, so different from Cedars. \u00a0And then that was all I ever heard from them, every time I saw one. \u00a0It’s a gorgeous sound from a gorgeous bird, but would it hurt for them to throw a little variation in? \u00a0It turns out that waxwings have some of the simplest repertoires of all passerines, with no true “song”, or at least none that has been documented. \u00a0And even their calls are typically variations on the same trill.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought. \u00a0This past summer I was privileged to be able to spend a lot of time recording in the far northern parts of North America. \u00a0Among the many species I was hoping to target was Bohemian Waxwing, on the vague theory that they must have more than just that trill call, and if they did I would be most likely to hear it on the breeding grounds. \u00a0At first I was rather frustrated. \u00a0I found waxwings aplenty, but they just would not cooperate! \u00a0Unlike in those big, practically tame flocks I was used to from irruption years in Colorado, Bohemian Waxwings in the taiga were quiet, shy, and rarely in groups larger than three or four birds.<\/p>\n

But then I lucked out. \u00a0I was driving along the Nabesna Road in eastern Alaska when I heard the distinctive trill of a Bohemian Waxwing out the window. \u00a0I worked my way into the stunted black spruce muskeg and was rather surprised when I found a pair of birds that were much less shy than I had come to expect. \u00a0The reason why became apparent a short while later when I saw one of the birds carrying nesting material to a spruce tree. \u00a0“Here it is,” I thought, “my chance to record some different vocalizations!” \u00a0And with that in mind I stood behind a nearby spruce and trained my mic on the birds as they built their nest. \u00a0But as I sat their recording them I was more and more disappointed – they occasionally gave either long or short versions of their normal trill, but nothing different. \u00a0It wasn’t until I listened to a cut I made where both birds landed together at the nest site that I heard a barely audible, amazingly variable sound unlike any I’d ever heard from Bohemian Waxwings before. \u00a0Jackpot! \u00a0That eureka moment recording (and a photo of the bird making it) are linked below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Bohemian<\/a>
Bohemian Waxwing, Nabesna Road, Alaska. \u00a9 Andrew Spencer.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n
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