Tweets --

Jack Bowling wrote:

> (snip)
> Incidentally, Black Scoters are the only scoter species
>that "sings". Actually croons is the better word. When you get a whole bunch
>going it is really quite eerie. It is a mellow hollow whistling about the same
>pitch as the cooing of a Rock Dove but in two separate phrases, the first
>with an ascending part and the second descending. They may have already
>paired off, though, and singing decreased. This is audible for quite a
>distance.

And Michael Price added:

>sounds more like a morning diner full of crapped-out gamblers nursing
>hangovers and moaning about their bad luck.

I have also considered it more of a moaning sort of sound, but missed the
Vegas connection ;)

>It's a lovely sound on one of those calm, misty Cascadian winter days.

And a lovely sound on Hood Canal as well.

-- Janet Hardin
Port Townsend, WA
wings at olympus.net