Subject: Thunder birds(Bewicks wren)
Date: Jul 30 00:17:14 1996
From: Mary Poss - mposs at u.washington.edu


Sorry about the delay in responding to this. I didn't want to let it pass,
because I think this type of discussion is what makes Tweeters so
valuable. At issue was my putative sighting of Bewicks wrens at high
elevation in the Thunder fire area. I wanted to provide a little more
info on that. The area was quite different than others that I'd surveyed
on that trip. It was in the Sheep Cr drainage (just to the west of
N20mile Pk, where the terrain gets very steep dropping into the
Chewuch.The subdrainage where I saw the wrens was primarily old spruce,
but there was also alot of white bark pine on the ridges. The drainage was
quite steep and narrow, in contrast to the wider meadow systems that I had
been surveying.
The most distinctive field markon these birds was the white eye
stripe and white/buff chin. Their song was complex and somewhat
variable,but not very long, with an intro note and pretty robust trill.It
didn't sound like a house wren to me, and sure looked like a
Bewicks wren. I notice in my Encyclopedia that Bewicks wrens occur at high
elevations in the south west.I'd be interested in more discussion on this.
The location isn't particularly easy to get to, but I'll sure make an
effort to get back there again and try to record it.

This would be cosmic. Bewick's don't occur anywhere near that area, and
they seem to me to be a confirmed lowland species. Any chance this might
have been a house wren?

> Other observations of potential interest: I heard what sounded
>like an orange crowned warbler (clear single note repeated rapidly on
same
>pitch 5-10 times and then descending) on multiple occasions. This turned
>out to be a dark eyed junco. I've never heard them terminate their song
>with sharply punctuated descending notes before. Comments?

I've heard junco songs descend. I think what makes an orange-crowned
different is the deceleration as well as the descent at the end. If
you're
saying the junco songs both decelerated and descended, then there's just
another problem with birding by ear!

I'd second that! What was particularly interesting about this song, is
that the only place I heard this variation was at the high point above
Sheep Cr in a high intensity burn adjacent to a large meadow. I heard
juncos everywhere for the 6 days that I was out and they all had heard the
same tapes that I had. After the discussion on" where do the orange crown
warblers go" awhile ago I was paying close attention for them.One thing
about birding in a burn-it's easy to see the birds.

Mary Poss
Dept Microbiology
UW