anonsally:

I realise I’ve fallen behind in posting about my bird fandom activities.

A couple weeks ago I was taking a walk in my neighborhood, along the accustomed route, when I heard a bird I had never heard before. “What was that?!” I asked myself. It didn’t take too long to locate the source of the sound, and after staring at it for a while in my binoculars and consulting Merlin, I finally concluded that it was a (male) brown-headed cowbird. I’ve seen it a few times since then, possibly with its mate once or twice. They occasionally hang out at the closer set of bird feeders. 

Around noon a few days after that, after my first outdoor dance class at a new location, I heard an unfamiliar birdsong. It kept changing, so I wondered if it might be a mockingbird. The bird was mostly grey and perched on top of a utility pole, but it occasionally flapped its wings and flew up for a moment before landing again, and the underside of the wings was black with flashy white markings. I was right; it was a northern mockingbird! I had only ever heard them singing at night (I’ll never forget the one in San Diego that sang the car alarm song at 2am, copying one of those car alarms that changes every 10 seconds) and I’m not sure if I had ever actually seen one before!

I’ve said it before, and not to be tiresome, but your becoming a full-on birder is the coolest thing. That you’re recognizing unusual vocalizations, tracking down the vocalizer, and getting a solid ID makes me ridiculously happy.

You realize what this means, right? You’re well on your way to walking down the street able to tick off species after species by ear. People will think you have some kind of superpower. And they’ll be right! 🙂

The vocalizations of BHCOs are really cool. David Sibley, during his appearance a while back on the American Birding Podcast, told host Nate that his latest birding-near-home pandemic activity has been studying the whistled songs of male cowbirds, which are individually distinctive.

And that’s not even getting into the female’s rattle call, which she apparently uses to communicate with her offspring in other birds’ parasitized nests, with that communication playing a role in the dramatic moment when the fledgling cowbird suddenly goes from associating with its foster parents to associating with other cowbirds.

Reposted from https://lies.tumblr.com/post/651061433371639808.