Bird Language Observations 2015-12-08

I spent 40 minutes observing birds in my backyard this morning from 7:23 to 8:03. It was very quiet. I didn't notice any obvious break from baseline during the whole observation. Here are some reflections that may or may not be Bird Language related.

eBird Checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S26179727
Weather: clear and cool, 46 degrees when I started, little or no wind
Where: backyard

Some small winter-resident or year-round-resident songbirds I often see flying over the trees in groups, obviously just getting from point A to point B. These include American Goldfinches, Cedar Waxwings, House Finches, and Yellow-rumped Warblers. (The groups of Yellow-rumped Warblers are always small. Sometimes just single birds and sometimes as many as 7 or 8.) Other small songbirds I never see flying over the trees in traveling groups like this: Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Orange-crowned Warbler, Carolina Chickadee, Black-crested titmouse. I only see them moving from tree to tree as they forage, or foraging in the same tree.

European Starlings were gathering in small groups at the tops of trees and calmly vocalizing. A couple times I seemed to notice one group responding to another. This is very common behavior I've seen on all my morning observations. Are these small family groups? Are they waiting for the sun to get higher and the temperature to warm up before they start foraging?

Late in the observation at 7:56, only once and pretty quietly, I heard the Blue Jay imitating a Cooper's Hawk from the same northwest corner of my yard where I usually hear it. I've never heard this from another direction.

I finally heard a single Carolina Wren shortly after. I noticed that the sun was just starting to reach the tops of the fences. Was this ground-liking bird waiting for the sun to reach it before it got its day started?

Here's my eBird checklist:

Posted on 08 de dezembro de 2015, 02:20 PM by mikaelb mikaelb

Comentários

Nice post, Mikael. I really want to get into recording bird sounds... Maybe that will be one of my objectives for this winter -- upload bird sounds to iNat!

Publicado por sambiology mais de 8 anos antes

Thanks Sam! To record sounds I've used the Audio Copy app on my iPhone mostly. You can link it with a Sound Cloud account which is where iNat references sounds. And it has some easy-to-use editing features. But last time I used it it put some annoying clicks/pops in the recording. If you want to get more serious, maybe reach out to @chris_hass.

Publicado por mikaelb mais de 8 anos antes

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