Thanks so much to the many Tweeters who offered suggestions about my mystery call in Lincoln Park (link below).

Some folks suggested House Sparrow. I had not considered this because I've observed perhaps one in the park in many years of fairly close observation. Which, of course, doesn't exclude this as a possibility (the call does sound similar if a bit twangier than my bird), but I think it's the less likely one.

The majority of suggestions were of a Hutton's Vireo. Although the iBird Pro recordings of HUVI's either ascended instead of descended, or were more smooth in transitions between notes, a couple of people noted that HUVI's have a descending-note-pair song variation. A helpful Tweeter pointed me to the Birds of North America Online recording of a Hutton's Vireo<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.ezproxy.spl.org:2048/bna/species/189/galleries/audio/bna-Huttons-Vireo/media_popup_view?t=audio&fn=http://clomedia.ornith.cornell.edu/audio/422A/422A.mov> (that link goes through the Seattle Public Library, which offers this resource free to library-card holders), and if you click on the link, at about 8 sec there is a quick descending-fifth song that sounds to me like the one I heard. This person also noted that they had heard Hutton's Vireos calling as early as February.

So I'm leaning toward Hutton's Vireo. I had also seen a Hutton's Vireo (different bird) near where I heard the sound, so perhaps that makes this even more likely.

I really appreciate everyone's help with this!

Cheers,
Trileigh

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Trileigh Tucker
Lincoln Park, West Seattle
Natural history website: naturalpresence.wordpress.com
Photography: flickr.com/photos/trileigh

From: <Tucker>, Trileigh Tucker <tri at seattleu.edu<mailto:tri at seattleu.edu>>
Date: Thursday, February 13, 2014 12:27 PM
To: "tweeters at u.washington.edu<mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>" <tweeters at u.washington.edu<mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Help with "Caller ID"?

Hi Tweets,

I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up being embarrassed about this, but I don't recognize a repeated call I heard this morning in Lincoln Park. I was never able to lay eyes on the bird with binocs or camera or naked eye; it was making its way through shrubbery in the central part of Lincoln Park, then flew to a nearby bare tree, then finally out of auditory range. It stayed generally about 10-20' up.

Its call was a quick, fairly high-pitched "dis-donc" with the second note a fifth lower than the first. The call was repeated at intervals of slightly less than a second, for maybe 20-30 reps at a time. I've used my iBird Pro sound search and listened to every likely listed forest species for February in Washington, and none of them match, to my ear at least.

I have a faint 5-sec recording at http://www.flickr.com/photos/trileigh/12506677934/ if you'd like to try your caller ID skills.

Again, I figure the chances are it's an incredibly common local bird I just haven't been paying enough attention to, but I'm willing to embarrass myself in order to learn?thanks in advance for your help.

Separately, it was fun just now watching an Anna's Hummingbird waiting impatiently a couple of inches behind the Chestnut-Backed Chickadee who was drinking sugar water from his feeder. I keep hoping to see the Townsend's Warbler who's also enjoyed this feeder in recent years.

Good birding,
Trileigh

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Trileigh Tucker
Lincoln Park, West Seattle
Natural history website: naturalpresence.wordpress.com<https://naturalpresence.wordpress.com/>
Photography: flickr.com/photos/trileigh<http://www.flickr.com/photos/trileigh/>