Birds and Sound: Part One

My brother's pic.


This time, I would get up early. I had resolved myself to get up at 4:30 in the morning so I could go birding and still make it on time to my friend's brother's aunt's sister's birthday party (not really).
Of course, I was hoping to get up at this ludicrous hour so I could study mimicry in California Thrashers at Whiting Ranch, out of curiosity, noble scientific state of mind, and the fact that it would be a cool post on my blog.

Around 2:00 a mockingbird said "Forget about thrashers! Mockingbirds are better," and started partaking in a one-bird rock concert. It finally shut up. Albeit a couple hours later.

At first, this noisy-neighbor-like behavior of mockingbirds was a great annoyance, but then I got to thinking, "Hey, at least I don't live in an area with Common Mynahs!" because Common Mynahs apparently have a screech-like call that turns you temporarily into a zombie, or something  like that anyway.

Mynahs (as a genus) reside only in a few tiny patches in the ABA area anyway, the kind of tiny patch that takes an hour and a magnifying glass to be found on a map. And then, not very long ago, a car rolled over the last countable  Mynah in the ABA area, freeing everyone in the area from the Mynah Zombie Curse.


So there you have it. I haven't found out anything new about thrasher mimicry but here's a cool (I hope) blog post and a few annoying sounds to go with it.



Disclaimer: I do not intend to hurt or permanently emotionally scar any birds with this post. If you are a very sensitive bird, do not read this post. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, AVES.


Videos may not show up on an iPad.  


Category One: Annoying

 European Starling 

Why it's annoying: constant squeaky scratchy squealing

 An accurate description of a starling "song" is a tiny cat being repeatedly trodden by an elephant. Multiply that by 50 and you have an idea of what a murmuration of starlings sounds like (HA! A murmuration of starlings? Good one).

Despite their sound being inherently annoying, the mechanics behind a starling flock are actually pretty fantastic. 

Listen to a recording of starlings that will make your ears bleed here.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/European_Starling/sounds



 Eastern Koel 

 Why it's annoying: Incessant whistling during the early hours of the morning

An Eastern Koel, or a Common Koel as you Oldsquaws call it (#jokesonlybirdsget), is a cuckoo that appears frequently throughout Eurasian habitats. Think Bronzed Cowbird, except with a more-cuckoo like shape. 

This is a bird that has caused many to tear out their earlobes with its incessant poowah whistles. One option is to go outside and yell, " KOEL-SWHERE!" and hopefully the bird will be amazed by how awesome your pun is and leave.

To simulate the effects of the calls of the Eastern Koel, set the below video's audio track as an alarm at 2:00. Also make sure that it is played at full volume and cannot be turned off.

Little Wattle Bird 

Why it's annoying: Incessant calling during the early hours of the morning. Loud, obnoxious, raspy call. Having the name Little Wattle Bird, which is a particularly annoying name (I know this is a sound competition, and it's a human's fault,  but I had to mention it).

The Little Wattle Bird is a sleek brown honeyeater that will make you wish it had never been born.
Unlike Koels, the Little Wattle Bird has no sense of humor as honeyeaters do, so yelling "Go away and wattle with the penguins with Antarctica," will have no effect on it (partly because that's a horrible pun).

Category Two: Loudest

Three-wattled Bellbird

Apparently you can hear a Three-wattled Bellbird from three miles away, landing it in the official Wow, How Onearthdoesthatbird MakE A Super Unusual, Raucous, Exponential, Stupendous, Terribly Happy, Interesting, Splendid, Sock-your-rocks off, Terribly Unique, Fabled, Feared, Astouding, Not Yucky, Wowzers, Amplified, Yodel-like sound Bird Sound Club, or WHO MEASURES THIS STUFF ANYWAY ???????for short.

The awesome sound of the Three-wattled Bellbird is used as a deadly weapon against territorial intruders. Have you ever been sleeping, and it's all nice, and then someone yells in your ear? Amplify that by 30X.

OUCH.

Category Three: Most Versatile Voice

Superb Lyrebird

If you thought that annoying 2 AM-singing mockingbird was an impressive mimic (and I'll admit, I've been fooled by that guy multiple times. Once I got  hyped up to the point of self-discovered-Code-7 because I thought there was a Pygmy-owl in my suburban yard), meet the Superb Lyrebird.

If this bird was named Superb Lyrebird centuries ago when lyres were the most versatile instruments around, it should be renamed Holyfreakingawesome GarageBand© Bird because that's a perfect summation of the extent of its abilities.

It's imitated construction building sounds, chainsaws, and cameras. Next thing you know, it'll be the next big pop star in Oceanic music.

Category Four: Most Beautiful

Thrushes


Wood thrushes, as you avid blog readers no doubt know, are a favorite bird of mine because of their haunting, beautiful songs.

Note: After some extensive research on wood thrush voice box use, it has been found, to my not-so-profound disappointment, that there is a pathetic amount of papers regarding how the sound of wood thrushes are produced. The ones I have amassed seem to have a vast amount of contradictions to other articles. I seek to finally relay this travesty in a future post. There will be a lot of text, and maybe even a bibliography.  You have been warned.  

Wood Thrush

First, I would like to debunk a myth I put in my post back in the ancient month of September 2014.

I could just scream at myself, but instead I think I'll play the call of the koel bird fifty times at full volume.

EVERY SINGLE BIRD has a syrinx. EVERY BIRD'S syrinx has a double voice box. I received this false knowledge from goodness-knows-where.

The post moves on.

Hermit Thrush 

Coming This Month:

Bird Palettes
The Science of Thrush Songs

plus a bunch of other posts




Hope you enjoyed this post.

Comments are appreciated!!

-Chiccadee


If you would like a "Birds and Sound: Part Two" and other "Birds and ________ "posts PLEASE comment because I would like to know if you like this kind of post!

A Starling Story: The Alarming Fate of Starlings

Most people know...

Once upon a time, in a place far, far away (Okay, not so far away. On the East Coast) some smart guy decided it would be a good idea to release European Starlings for the simple and stupid reason that the new continent America had to harbor every single bird that appeared in Shakespeare.

Little did he know he was unleashing a deadly fate for many of North America's native birds.

House Sparrows, also from Europe, were released in the hordes for a different reason. People thought that the cities were lifeless without birds. At the time, no native American birds were found in cities due to their unexpected and sudden arrival (They didn't have time to adapt). 

Bathing House Sparrow. These guys are found ALL OVER THE PLACE now, and they push out native birds.

What better way to cure the lifelessness than release a couple dozen House Sparrows? House Sparrows had already adapted to the gradual arrival of cities in Europe! They would surely take to the cities of America, right? 

People were so worried that House Sparrows wouldn't make it that they started to shoot the now rapidly-declining shrikes to protect the lousy sparrows. 

The two invasive, highly aggressive birds grew hugely in numbers and began kicking out native cavity-nesting birds from their nests. They almost caused the extinctions of the three bluebird species in North America. No doubt, they have extirpated hundreds of native bird populations locally through the entire nation.  And they still are doing it, to this day, despite the huge amount of control efforts to bring them down.

Often, House Sparrows will completely dominate and take over a feeder, keeping native birds away from it. 

The Other Side of Things

Ironically... 

House Sparrows and European Starlings are both declining rapidly in their native homeland. And they are still declining, to this day, despite the huge amount of control efforts to bring them back up. Starling populations in Europe have declined over 80% in the last couple decades. Unfortunately, it looks like they're headed on the path of hard return. 

Sadly, these birds may become extinct if the reason for their rapid decline is not discovered and dealt with soon.

So why are starlings and House Sparrows doing so ridiculously well in America, which isn't even their native homeland, but dying out miserably in Europe? 

What's happening to the starlings? 

Starlings feed on specific invertebrates heavily that are regarded as pests, so as those "pests," are eliminated, the starlings are eliminated too, some say. Then how are starlings surviving so well here, where gardeners freak out and spray two tons of pesticide at an aphid? 

Others (in denial. This decline has been going on for decades) say the huge crash is because the mild winter has enabled the starlings to forage in the wild. I'm not even sure how that really makes sense. Isn't there more food in the wild than in cities anyway? 

Still others say that other birds are pushing them out. I doubt that a bird aggressive enough to kill two bluebird parents for their own nest will be pushed out by other less aggressive birds. And there's no evidence that other aggressive bird populations are on the rise, anyway, quite the contrary. 

So what's happening to the sparrows and starlings? 

What do you think?

-chiccadee