>Hi Tweeters,
>
>Perhaps you can help me with this local ID problem - I finally came up
>with a guess, but I'll leave that for later.
>
>I was on a softball field at the UW, and heard this loud nasal chattering,
>like some oversized siskins overhead. I located the source of the sound,
>which was two birds flying by at treetop height or greater, at a distance.
>All I could see was size and shape and behavior. The size was in the
>robin range, or maybe a little larger, and the shape was distinctive -
>long tailed, like a cuckoo or a male grackle, or an ani. The distinctive
>behavior was the tremendous racket - the birds never stopped calling for
>the whole time they were flying by. As I said, it reminded me of finchy
>noises the at first, though it was much lower pitched. What birds were
>these? They were not like any bird I have seen in the east, or out here
>since I got here last year.
>
>The only idea I could come up with was that they might be some sort of
>psittacine - what are the local parakeets that have been mentioned on
>tweeters before?
>
>Chris Hill
>Seattle, WA
>cehill at u.washington.edu

Most parakeets give squawks that *sound* like parrots, not like oversized
siskins or "nasal chattering," so I don't know if these were unusual
parakeets or just the semantics of bird-sound descriptions. The
Crimson-fronted Parakeets that have been discussed several times give
single screeches, not anything like your description. Descriptions I read
of Monk Parakeet calls don't sound like this either. I'm at a loss,
although "tremendous racket" and long tail certainly sounds like a
parakeet.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416