My birding buddy and I decided last night would be a good night to look
for common yellowthroats. So we went over to Cherry Valley just north of
Duval to see if any were about. After walking 10 feet from the car, we
heard a "witchety-witchety" and saw what we came for on top of a bush only
a few feet away. We saw several more as we made our way east towards the
blind. At the fencerow on the east end we saw many more along with a
Savannah Sparrow, a snipe, quite a few marsh wrens, killdeer and others.
Off in the trees across the farmer's field we heard two screech owls
communicating with each other. On the way back towards the car we saw
some Cinnamon teals. When we finally got back to the vehicle, it was
almost 9:00. We were getting ready to leave when we heard the
yellowthroat sound close by. So we decided to have one more look. We
must have heard it for five minutes before finding it. A nice ending to
our trip we thought. Walking back to the car, we were both startled by a
sound I had never heard before--"oonk-a-lunk, oonk-a-lunk." You have to
know that my birding buddy and I have been searching for the elusive
American Bittern for over two years. I've been fortunate enough to have
seen them twice. Unfortunately, for my buddy, he has yet to see one. But
he had heard them once before (An experienced birder identified the sound
for him.) He looked excitedly at me and said, "It's THEM!" For the next
hour we stood in the rain listening to two of "THEM" calling back and
forth. I believe we were within 10 yards of one of them (We triangulated
where the sound seemed to be coming from.). I've never heard anything
quite like that sound. It just doesn't seem possible that a bird could
make a noise like that. I found the experience exhilarating--on the same
level as actually first seeing one. Last night I found out the joy of the
hearing part of birding.
wjansen