Cat Rambo ([info]catrambo) wrote,
@ 2007-04-26 14:13:00
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Current mood: amused

Boids

I'm poking around on the net trying to figure out what the bird climbing around on the tree outside is, and I find a page for identifying birds that includes sound-clips.  I click on various ones - is it a pine siskin? No, that doesn't look quite right. Hrm. I click on the American goldfinch noise.

WHUMP, the bird outside hears it and heads straight for this window only to bounce off the screen in a moment that was the highlight of the cats' entire year.

So I'm pretty sure it was a goldfinch.


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[info]chuck_lw
2007-04-26 09:27 pm UTC (link)
I suggest you promote this as the official scientific method for identifying various species of birds.:-)

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[info]lmarley
2007-04-26 10:01 pm UTC (link)
You're just bad.

We have to hang a bird silhouette in our picture window to keep the whatever-they-ares from attacking their reflections on sunny days. Some just fall unconscio for a while, but one or two have actually become dead from crashing into the glass. We got the silhouette (a black cardboard thing) from the Audubon Society.

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[info]catrambo
2007-04-26 10:09 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, that's always sad :( I was glad I had the window open so it hit the screen instead. I would have felt terrible if I'd made it hurt itself.

The funny thing is, about a minute later, a hummingbird appeared outside the screen, chirping away as though scolding me for tricking the first bird. I love writing at this desk.

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[info]buymeaclue
2007-04-26 10:40 pm UTC (link)
Hee!

I did an independent study in college about birdsong. I got to go out once to band some birds with the prof that was supervising me. Mostly we were after indigo buntings. Catching them involved setting up this net and then playing a recording of bunting song, which in theory would bring them in. The buntings were shyyyyy.

Towards the end, we set up to trap a red-eyed vireo, which was the bird I was working on. Flipped on the recording and ZOOM! Vireo in the net, and absolutely furious.

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[info]ann_leckie
2007-04-26 10:44 pm UTC (link)
linky? I'd love to poke around a site like that.

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[info]catrambo
2007-04-27 03:02 am UTC (link)
http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=463

Not all of them have the sounds, alas.

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[info]ann_leckie
2007-04-29 01:09 pm UTC (link)
Thank you!

I now know that the strangely loud and early bird outside my bedroom window is a white throated sparrow.

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[info]countesslovlace
2007-04-27 04:26 am UTC (link)
And this is where I tell the bird story:

When the young countess was a toddler, we were in the living room when we heard a thump.

The young countess said, "Whuzzat?"

I said, "That was probably a bird flying into the window or the wall."

The young countess promptly called out, "Bird? Don't touch. Waw. 'Kay?"

Her pronunciation is a whole lot clearer now that she's 18. I could send her over to you after she's done with finals if it would help.

Although you could just try saying it to the goldfinches yourself.

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[info]shelly_rae
2007-04-27 04:37 am UTC (link)
Like Louise at my house the pine siskins so regularly slammed into the sliding glass door that I put stickers up to stop them. However I have to admit taking pleasure in holding the stunned little bird in my hand, watching it do the cartoon head shake and feel its heartbeat in my palm. I'd set them into the birdfeeder to recover safe from the neighbor's marauding cats and they'd eventually fly off.

The goldfinch's yellow plumage is a sharp contrast to the spring green and winter's end gray. It always makes me think a canary has gotten out and is slumming at the birdfeeder with the natives.
Anon

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[info]reddherring1955
2007-04-27 12:09 pm UTC (link)
As a constant bird feeder and watcher, here and overseas, I'll be careful with my CDs of bird songs in the future. No kami-kaze birds here, I hope.

May I suggest that a good field guide might be a good purchase? I acquired my bird song CD with my last such acquisition.

Was your goldfinch a yellow male or a greenish female? Both are beautiful, IMHO. I have two thistle feeders and attract as many as 16 at a time.

And as you laugh at my khaki uniform and binoculars, might I mention that when I went to Crete, by the end of the trip, I was having to share my field guide with many others in my writers' group there who also started looking for native birds. The kestrels and swallow were amazing.

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[info]reddherring1955
2007-04-27 12:13 pm UTC (link)
Kestrels, swallows and swifts, I should have said. Too bad I never saw a hoopoe on the island, famous for its migratory visitors.

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