Subject: Re: Fox Sparrows (was Ravines below St. Mark's)
Date: Mar 23 08:46:45 1997
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

Tom Foote writes:
> we might have to have to come up
>with a *match-the-description-with-your-own-piece* contest and
>publish the entries in a Tweets Collection of Natural Histories...

I'm sure that we'd see some really interesting material emerge in such a
contest, Tom (though I hope things don't get so 'Bent' as to need 'Joe's
wood krutch' ;-). A thought, though: it would need to be handled well; if it
evolved into any kind of competitive 'cuttin' contest', I can foresee quite
undesirable consequences. There's a good reason pride was included when they
drew up the list of the Seven Deadly Sins...

Jack Bowling writes:
>Harumph. Altogether too inclusive, Michael. *Some* Fox Sparrows sing from cover
>but *most* in my experience do not. They usually go to the top few branches of
>the nearest highest shrub, etc. and then deliver that oh-so-sweet song. One on
>the Charlottes actually sang from the top of a little snag in the plainest view
>possible.

Yes, Jack, you're right, for your area. Another instance in which wintering
and breeding-territory birds behave differently (i.e., nesting Solitary
Sandpipers in treetops). I'm used to the behavior of the wintering and
migrant birds, forgetting you're likely to see the other in your part of the
province. Let me amend that to say that it is very difficult to see a
singing Fox Sparrow in Vancouver BC as they virtually always sing from cover
here during the winter and in migration. Even the 'zaboria'-type we saw at
Donna Creek was singing mostly from shrubby cover on an old clearcut.

Well, now they're nesting on Grouse Mtn & Cypress Bowl here, it's a good
opportunity to see a male singing on territory. We don't know when they set
up shop there, either. An opportunity to see if they arrive at the same time
of the year as those on the Islands.

Re Varied Thrush:
>Now here is one bird that often *does* sing from inside cover, usually covered
>by a few cedar or spruce boughs close to the end of a branch near the top of
>the tree, but not quite in plain view.

In the survey we did in your area at Donna Creek a few years ago, we had to
estimate the distances from line of transect to the singing bird in the
old-growth forest transects. The most difficult to estimate of all was the
Varied Thrush. After repeatedly having to revise upwards the guesstimate
distances to a singing male thrush and turning our transect cards into
shreddded pulp from so many erasures, we soon learned to tack on an extra
zero to any estimated distance. That song punches through the forest for a
tremendous distance.

Once again, wintering Varied Thrushes in Stanley Park sing mostly from deep
cover, either from on the ground or from a tangle. Singing from at or near
the top of a tree on the coast would put it up at least 200 feet in these
big firs, cedars and hemlocks.

>And I suggest that you are listening to
>way too much Philip Glass in your spare time.

I wish! ;-)

>To describe a Varied Thrush song
>as industrial is to cheapen it beyond repair.

A critic baying at one's heels! ;-) Seriously, what's to cheapen? We're
discussing a bird that spends most of its life eating bugs in the woods, not
the Virgin Mary. I was actually looking to boot that cliche 'ethereal' into
the trashpile and find something more personally useful; if it got a little
frisky, so much the better (how about 'Forest Turnstone' from its habit of
flipping leaves?). In all amiability, I invite you to propose your own
simile/metaphor.

>But I do like the Miles Davis
>comparison!

Heh! I can remember some jazz musician saying that Davis may deign to play
only one note in a concert, but it would be *the* note.

M


Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada When I found out that seven of my years
(604) 668-5073 vx was only one of theirs,
(604) 668-5028 fx I started biting absolutely everything.
mprice at mindlink.net
michael.price at istar.ca -Max Carlson (Ron Carlson's dog)