[texbirds] The Rest of the Story on the Quintana Connecticut Warbler
- From: Ron Weeks <ronweeks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 10:12:02 -0700 (PDT)
TexBirders,
Thanks to Eric Carpenter who made several sonograms of the Quintana bird, I was
able to study & compare vocalizations in detail last night. The bird does not
closely match any sonogram I can find for any species. But what I was able to
do was look was look at individual notes and look for matches with known
sonogram notes. By doing this I was quickly able to reduce it down to two
species, Connecticut and Northern Waterthrush which also sings a loud staccato
type song. I was surprised at how similar some of the notes between the two
species were. But in the end, I was able to find some exact matches for the
introductory notes of the Northern Waterthrush. The closing notes were a
pretty
close close match for both species. The bottom line is that even though the
composite sounds much like a Connecticut Warbler, an objective look says it was
most likely a Northern Waterthrush singing an odd mix of notes. I had to look
at several different known NOWA sonograms to find all the pieces, but they are
there. Never had I heard this combination from NOWA, but spring migrants sing
varied songs and often song pieces.
So in the end, I learned just how tricky these spring migrant songs can be.
And
it also underscores the importance of doing just what I did...getting a
recording or other physical evidence on a bird you know is unusual. Had I not
gotten that recording with my iPhone, I (and likely everyone else who heard how
similar that bird was to BirdTunes COWA #3) would have gone to the grave
believing that bird had to be a Connecticut Warbler.
Good Birding,
Ron Weeks
Lake Jackson
Other related posts:
- » [texbirds] The Rest of the Story on the Quintana Connecticut Warbler - Ron Weeks