In the Sibley Guide to Birds I wrote that Western and Clark’s Grebes are “incapable of walking”. I thought they could only push themselves along on their bellies, but I should have known that I was flirting with danger by writing such an absolute statement. Soon after the book was published I heard that they […]
Western Grebes can walk! Read More »
I’ve just posted a new painting for auction. You can see the auction and closing time in the sidebar to the right. This is a small gouache painting of a singing male Common Yellowthroat, which will be appearing here soon in a blog post about bird song. For more images and more details about the
New art for auction Read More »
After my post a few days ago about the unusual Cattle Egret in Florida, I heard from two people with interesting observations to add. Robert Edgar and Sarah McKenzie sent the photos featured here and said “We photographed a very similar bird on 1 May 1995 at a breeding colony in the Nile Valley, Egypt.It
More unusual Cattle Egrets Read More »
Among the many benefits of paying attention to bird sounds is that they give you an insight into what the birds are doing. Through their songs and calls the birds announce not only their presence, but also what they are doing. One example is the mobbing of predators. Birds give alarm calls when they see
Understanding Alarm Calls of Birds Read More »
In late April 2012, Roy Halpin found and photographed an entirely buff-colored Cattle Egret in Saint Augustine, Florida. This is a particularly interesting bird because it provides an opportunity to consider the unusual nature of Cattle Egret coloration, as well as the identification of Cattle Egret subspecies. Coloration in Cattle Egrets To understand this bird’s
An unusual Cattle Egret in Florida Read More »
The next part of my introduction to learning bird songs is now up (click here). Birds can hear a lot “faster” than we can, however, and consequently can extract a lot more information from the very rapid series of notes. The differences are there, and a Chipping Sparrow does not get confused by the songs
Bird Song ID series continues – Eastern Trills Read More »
Part 5 of my introduction to learning bird songs is now up (click here). Many of the words that we use to describe the quality of a bird song also carry information about pitch and tempo. For example, only sounds in a certain pitch range can be described as whistled, and we tend to call
Bird songs Part 5: Describing Quality Read More »
Part 4 of my introduction to learning bird songs is now up (click here). In the narrowest sense, the quality of a bird’s voice would refer strictly to the tonal quality of the sound. Musicians call this “timbre”, and it allows us to distinguish a trumpet from a violin from a flute, even when all
Part 4: Understanding Quality in bird song Read More »
Part 3 of my introduction to learning bird songs is now up (click here). In this discussion, tempo refers to the overall “pace” of the song, the number of notes or phrases per second. We describe this as fast or slow, and over the course of the whole song the tempo can be steady or
Tempo, and bird song identification Read More »
Pitch is simply our perception of the frequency (or wavelength) of a sound, which we describe as high to low. Birds’ range of hearing is similar to our own, and bird song covers the full range to the limits of human hearing, from the lowest hooting sounds of Great Gray Owl or Spruce Grouse to
Pitch, and bird song identification Read More »