I might have heard the same bird Sunday afternoon in the parking lot at
the arboretum. My husband was in the restroom, and when he returned I told
him I had heard a bird I had never heard before and then repeated its song
to him. I can't remember it now, but your rendition resonates. It was quite
melodic (not buzzy). I didn't look for it right away as I was distracted by
the plants on the sale table (another obsession). When I did finally scan
the conifers that ring that area I didn't see anything.

This isn't very helpful, except to indicate where the bird might be if
it's still in the area (if it's the same bird).

By the way, there was a Western Scrub Jay at my suet feeder in Port
Townsend when I was last there two weeks ago. There's nothing unusual about
that, right?

Janine Anderson
jatlmm at msn.com

[Anderson] -----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of B. A. Wolfe
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:02 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Capitol Hill Bird ID help


Hiya tweets, I need a hand with bird ID.

My wife was walking home Sunday afternoon, and heard a bird call she'd
never heard before, and was able to see only the underside of the bird due
to its being fairly high in a tree on a narrow street. The call sounded like
zzz zzzzzzzz chuwEE chuwEE chuwEE chuwEE (the zzz sounds were very soft,
longer on the second buzz, and the whistled chuwEE sounds were higher
pitched on the second syllable). Each time the bird called it was the same,
2 buzzes followed by 4 loudly whistled chuwee sounds, and it repeated the
sequence monotonously and continuously for a couple of minutes. It then
stopped calling, flew into a lower cedar tree and disappeared.

She saw the bird from below and said it appeared to be roughly
sparrow-sized, maybe slightly larger, and was plain white or light gray on
the underside:breast, belly and throat. It had a relatively large head,
longish, very narrow, sharply pointed bill, and stood quite upright on the
branch.

Gina said that it seemed "out of place", like a migrant that lost its
way and was calling for others of its own kind, but that could just be
anthropomorphism. If anyone has any ideas, we'd sure appreciate it, as it
sounds like it'd be a new bird for us for sure. We have Sibleys, Kaufmanns
and Audubon guides and some bird CD's, but have had no luck on our own so
far. Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Brett A. Wolfe gismybabe at yahoo.com Seattle, WA





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