I get a big kick out of watching my birding students puzzle over the
pied-billed grebe on our pond. It sounds like an underwater donkey, and
definitely eerie. I don't think they call while they fly, though.



Alexia Stevens

Wilderness Awareness Residential Program

alexia at wildernessawareness.org

(425) 788-1301 x50

www.WildernessAwareness.org <http://www.wildernessawareness.org/>

Bird Language Weekend June 20-22!

Wilderness Awareness School is dedicated to caring for the earth and our
children by fostering understanding and appreciation of nature, community,
and self.

_____

From: tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Christy
Jobe
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 9:15 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] help identifying bird only *heard* at Ridgefield NWR



Hi Tweets,



Over the weekend Larry and I birded twice at the auto tour at Ridgefield
NWR, and on our Sunday trip there we found ourselves mystified and
completely stumped in our efforts to identify a bird sound (we're assuming
that it was a bird!) that we heard there. I'm hoping maybe someone here can
help!



We first noticed the sound when we were walking on the short trail to the
observation blind on the auto tour. The sound that we were hearing was
rather haunting, creepy, eiree, disconcerting. (Think "Blair Witch Project"
(which I never saw, actually) or some other equally creepy, haunting movie
with something unknown teasing all around you in the dark - except that,
thank goodness, it was a nice bright day! :) It was a sort of
"wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh" or "woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo" (this is a
pretty imperfect description - sorry) that seemed somehow to be cycling
through the air around us and coming repeatedly closer. We were hearing the
sound all around us and kept looking around trying to identify its source.
The sound seemed to indicate movement, but all that we saw flying around us
were various Swallows, nesting Starlings (yuck!), and Yellow-Rumped
Warblers, none of which (to our knowledge or our Peterson CD) make this
sound. It was like being surrounded by approaching ghosts or spirits - the
sound consistently seemed to be coming rapidly closer, but as soon as we
would whip around toward the apparent source location, it would be gone and
nothing would visibly be there.



Stranger still, while at first the sound seemed to be occurring all over the
place around us, after a few minutes the sound completely disappeared from
that area.(?) It was weird enough to make me question whether I'd heard it
at all (I did ask Larry once or twice and he confirmed that he'd heard it as
well. :)



We later also occasionally heard the sound from our car while on the auto
tour, though never as loud or with the same sense of its maker being so
immediately near to us and/or "incoming!".



Does anyone have any idea what this might have been? I really want to
resolve this mystery, but don't really even know where to start. Some sort
of duck? Warbler? Hawk way high overhead? It definitely was coming from up
at high tree level or above, so it wasn't like it was a frog or something.



Any help would be much appreciated!



We had excellent birding all weekend, btw, twice at Ridgefield and almost a
full day on Sauvie Island, and got to add several birds to our life lists!
I'll try to get around to posting a report later this week.



Thanks much and good birding!



~Christy Jobe

Kenmore, WA

christyrj_ at _hotmail_com