Subject: FWD: Field Identification of Western Flycatcher sp. in Alberta
Date: May 6 17:01:16 2001
From: Mike Patterson - celata at pacifier.com


The following from BIRDWG01 will probably not come as a surprise....

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Hi.
I apologize to those of you who have seen this in another group. There are
now more bird vocalizations in the comparison graphs and several people
suggested I might find some help here.

I am concerned about the field id of the species which make up the former
Western Flycatcher in Alberta, the Pacific-slope Flycatcher (Epidonax
difficilis) or the Cordilleran Flycatcher (E. occidentalis). I have
recorded the Alberta species and even upon analysis of the call, song and
parts of the song by ear and computer generated graphs of the pitch and
volume of the components cannot in my own mind safely assign the birds to
either species. As one person put it "We cannot even look at a range map
and bluff" because the range of the two species is in doubt in Alberta.

The recording of the Alberta bird as well as the graphs to analyze the call
and parts of the song of it and 9 other birds can be accessed from:

http://owlnut.rr.ualberta.ca/~barb/sounds/WesternFlycatcher.html
The sonograms and the wave form displays indicate a considerable variation
in the vocalizations of these birds across their range.

One is supposed to be able to separate these birds on vocalization but based
on the intermediate vocalizations we appear to have here I am not sure these
things can be separated by ear (or the computer graphs) in our area.

Any comments the experts in this group might have to help us out would be
greatly appreciated
Barb Beck
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Barb.Beck at ualberta.ca

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--
Mike Patterson Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo,
Astoria, OR it is not enough to be persecuted
celata at pacifier.com by an unkind establishment,
you must also be right.
---Robert Park
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html