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pameladeanSo it's finally spring, and for the last several weeks robins, house finches, bluejays, and cardinals have been singing and calling. The chickadees are weirdly silent and I'm a bit worried about them, but we did hear demands for "cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger" earlier in the year.
The robins have been very actively singing. For the last week or so, I've heard one that didn't sound like the others. I began to wonder. Eventually, while still related to a robin's song, it just went completely over the top like a highly operatic rendition of a simple folk song. A day or so after that, I heard in the gloaming the high thin cry of, no, not a Siamese cat, but a gray catbird.
This morning at dawn I was awakened by Saffron's abrupt exit from under the quilt, or else by a very loud buzzy trilly song with melodious intervals that went on, with variations and possibly from at least two different sources, for at least an hour. The catbirds had finished their training and were prepared to perform concerts. They have been doing this intermittently all day. There was a brief period in which cardinals, like hawkers at the intermission of an Elizabethan play, cried, "What cheer?" for a while. But then the catbirds began again.
They seemed to be right on my bedroom windowsill, and the cats absolutely thought so too. Invisibility not being a known trait of catbirds, though they are skilled at yelling at you from dense shrubbery, I stared out the window until I saw movement in the ash tree across our neighbor to the north's back yard, and then got out the binoculars. Yes! Catbird!
We have had a single catbird before, and I always welcome it. I wonder how many there are this year.
Here are some images of a gray catbird, though the ones we get here seldom have a red patch under their tails:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Gray_Catbird/id
And here are some sound files:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Gray_Catbird/sounds
The first file, of the catbird song, is not unlike our catbirds, though ours have more robin in them at the moment. For the cat cry, the call recorded in New York is most like ours. I was startled by some of the others, which were less Siamese and more pure meow.
I was going to add a robin's song for comparison, but none of the ones I could find was as melodious and meditative as the ones we have in my neighborhood.
Pamela
The robins have been very actively singing. For the last week or so, I've heard one that didn't sound like the others. I began to wonder. Eventually, while still related to a robin's song, it just went completely over the top like a highly operatic rendition of a simple folk song. A day or so after that, I heard in the gloaming the high thin cry of, no, not a Siamese cat, but a gray catbird.
This morning at dawn I was awakened by Saffron's abrupt exit from under the quilt, or else by a very loud buzzy trilly song with melodious intervals that went on, with variations and possibly from at least two different sources, for at least an hour. The catbirds had finished their training and were prepared to perform concerts. They have been doing this intermittently all day. There was a brief period in which cardinals, like hawkers at the intermission of an Elizabethan play, cried, "What cheer?" for a while. But then the catbirds began again.
They seemed to be right on my bedroom windowsill, and the cats absolutely thought so too. Invisibility not being a known trait of catbirds, though they are skilled at yelling at you from dense shrubbery, I stared out the window until I saw movement in the ash tree across our neighbor to the north's back yard, and then got out the binoculars. Yes! Catbird!
We have had a single catbird before, and I always welcome it. I wonder how many there are this year.
Here are some images of a gray catbird, though the ones we get here seldom have a red patch under their tails:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Gray_Catbird/id
And here are some sound files:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Gray_Catbird/sounds
The first file, of the catbird song, is not unlike our catbirds, though ours have more robin in them at the moment. For the cat cry, the call recorded in New York is most like ours. I was startled by some of the others, which were less Siamese and more pure meow.
I was going to add a robin's song for comparison, but none of the ones I could find was as melodious and meditative as the ones we have in my neighborhood.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2020-05-22 10:12 pm (UTC)This is just lovely.
I think we have -- sparrows, chickadees (dee - dee -dee, one of the first bird calls I learned to recognize in NM), starlings, robins, seagulls, crows, pigeons, and a little guy on our old iron fire escape with a peach-pink head -- no idea what he was.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-22 10:24 pm (UTC)I love chickadees, so bold. I should get some thistle seed for them.
I'm also guiltily fond of starlings. It's not their fault that some Shakespeare idolator with more hair than wit decided to import them. And their stars are so lovely. I also like their pennywhistle call.
Your peach-head guy might be a house finch or a purple finch, although I'm not sure that's quite the right color; I think of house finches as having raspberry heads. I'm not that great at western birds. I do have the Western Sibley around somewhere.
P.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-22 10:30 pm (UTC)I totally love starlings. I love how they imitate sounds and their swizzle-stick goofy call and their pretty pretty feathers. T swears there's one in our neighbourhood that does car alarms.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-23 04:26 am (UTC)The fanciness of starlings is different but no less pleasing."Swizzle-stick goofy call" is perfect.
I'm sure T is right. Starlings are good mimics. I live in hope of one's crying "Mortimer!" at me, but so far my hope has not been rewarded.
P.