Subject: heard birds on your life list?
Date: May 18 16:20:29 1999
From: Don Baccus - dhogaza at pacifier.com
At 03:58 PM 5/18/99 -0700, two.wing-nuts at juno.com wrote:
>How does one ascertain that a given vocalization is being produced by the
>bird it sounds like as opposed to being mimicked by one of our many
>mimickers? The other day my wife had the binocs on a starling repeatedly
>giving the "chicago" call of the California quail? Just curious.....not
>trying to start a range war. Hans
Habitat helps a lot. Whenever I hear a killdeer call from the
top of a telephone pole in SE Portland, I know it's a starling.
But when I hear one on a beach, it's a different story.
Also, starlings generally give themselves away by mixing
snippets of mimicry together, tossing in their usual
complex starling calls, etc. If you listen for a bit,
starlings are pretty obvious.
- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
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