RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS....AND BIRDSONG

One of the real happy moments here at The Mount is this month of February when the Red-Winged Blackbirds return. Their "call" and their unmusical song, ---Con-Con-Coreeeeee!! is pretty easy to recognize. The Tufted Timouse's "Peter, Peter, Peter" is also is a no brainer to recognize. The same is true for the ever present Black-Capped Chickadees and the White-Breasted Nuthatches with their plaintive "Ank, Ank, Ank!" We have at least one Piliated Woodpecker and their call is pretty easy to recognize as is the broken or off-key guitar call of the Red-Bellied Woodpecker. I usually to to the net occasionally to sites that have birdsong. The Cornell site that is over to the right in my Birding Favorite Links will have pretty much all the North American birds. You can google the name of pretty much any bird and the net is more than likely going to take you to a site where you will both hear it and sometimes see it graphically represented. I have heard that sometimes the only way that experts can come to a positive ID of two birds that sing "sort of" similarly is to graph it. If you read Marie Winne's book Central Park After Dark which I enjoyed immensely, you will see that sound graphs (or whatever they are called) are often the only way to distinguish the sound of certain bats. I will give you hear an interesting link to NORTH AMERICAN BIRDSONGS. It is http://www.naturesongs.com/birds.html.