----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Woodward" <grackling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jc35053@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [va-bird] They're Back! Asking for help/frustrated by small
flycatchers
Craig,
Two questions (1) have you ever visually confirmed that they are Yellow-bellied Flycatchers and (2) are you familar with the variety of Acadian Flycatcher calls? (copy from BNA is shown below). As you probably know it is the wrong time of year for yellow-bellys (rare spring migrants at best) and the breeding habitat is entirely wrong ( they nest in boreal forests).
Paul Woodward
Fairfax City, VA
grackling@xxxxxxx
Acadian Flycatcher vocalizations (from BNA)
A diverse vocal repertoire including a distinctive territorial song, a complex dawn song, a distinctive Flutter Call, and a variety of alarm or position calls. Mumford (1964) followed below in distinguishing between an advertising or territorial song and a variety of other vocalizations or calls.
Territorial song has been transliterated in a number of ways (e.g., Christy 1942, Mumford 1964, Whitney and Kaufman 1986): a distinctive and explosive tee-chup ( Fig. 2A); also described as peet-sah or flee-sick. Accent appears to be variable, as Mumford (1964) suggests that second syllable is accented, whereas Whitney and Kaufman (1986) suggest it is on the first. Males begin singing almost immediately upon arriving on breeding grounds and most continue to sing regularly throughout breeding season.
Females occasionally sing tee-chup, usually in situations involving stress; e.g., when disturbed from nest or immediately after release from a mist-net (Kellner and Ritchison 1988, DRW). One female singing with no apparent provocation while brooding (DRW).
Distinctive dawn song described as consisting of tee-chup interspersed with metallic seet, speet, spake, or speak notes given very rapidly. One male gave 222 seets and 39 seet-tee-chups between 04:30 and 04:35 (Mumford 1964). Dawn song is striking for its unusual length and the rapidity with which notes are given. Mumford noted 1 male singing continuously for 47 min.
Vocal repertoire also includes an evening song, at least some of which is delivered in flight. Mumford (1964) describes this vocalization in detail. Evening song delivered from perches in canopy (20–25 m) and in air above canopy and is focused on an area 50–100 m from usual singing perches. Initiated with a series of wseet or pseet calls, followed by wheel chur, queer queep, and other notes. Notes often increase in frequency, then build up to a climax, when flight song is delivered. Male then flies upward above canopy, moves about 20 m, giving wheel chur calls. When flight song ends, he dives downward at a sharp angle into canopy and perches 8–13 m above ground. Many other call notes can be woven in. Aspects of this song reminiscent of flight song of Least Flycatcher (Briskie 1994).
A call frequently uttered by male is a series of twittered notes sounding almost like a slow trill. Described by Brewster (1882) as similar to whistling of wings and by A. A. Saunders (in Christy 1942: 194) as like “the sound produced by the Mourning Dove in flight.” Mumford (1964) refers to this as the Flutter Call, since male often produces it while hovering above a perch or fluttering from 1 perch to another. Typically 1–3 s in duration ( Fig. 2B) and often associated with typical tee-chup.
Most frequently heard vocalization is a sharp pwit, pweet, or peet, given by both male and female, perhaps slightly more often by female ( Fig. 2C). Can be given very sharply and explosively or very softly, and can be given as a single note or repeatedly in a rapid sequence. Members of a mated pair appear to use it to call back and forth to each other. Also used with intensity in response to perceived threat (potential predator, female Brown-headed Cowbird [Molothrus ater], or mirrors used to monitor nests above eye level; DRW).
A call heard regularly from birds in s.-central Indiana is a vigorous whip-pee-wheer and apparent variants that could be described as whip-whip, pee-wheer, or simply wheer or peer (DRW). This may correspond to the wheel-chur described by Mumford (1964). This call appears to be given primarily by female, usually when she is near nest. Male usually responds, either with song or call notes. However, males also observed using whip-pee-wheer vocalization (DRW). In 1 instance, both male and female of a mated (and banded) pair gave this vocalization (and other calls) with some intensity after an interaction with an Acadian from an adjacent territory.
Both males and females appear to have other calls, often quite soft, that they give as they arrive at nest with food items for nestlings. Newman (1958) described a pee-tul given by a male carrying food items. Mumford (1964) described same calls and referred to them as “greeting notes.” Similar vocalizations heard from males approaching nest; transliterated as p-link or p-loink (DRW). This call often given when female was present near nest, but also during a territorial encounter (DRW).
Many other calls have been described (e.g., Mumford 1964), but much remains to be understood. Little is known in detail concerning context and function of vocalizations. No evidence of geographic variation.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Tufts" <jc35053@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "va-bird" <va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 4:02 PM
Subject: [va-bird] They're Back! Asking for help/frustrated by small flycatchers
Here's a lead to a good weekend hike i northern Virginia woodlands.
For the fourth year in a row, over the past week, I've been observing and hearing, in a number of places in the state, what I assume is an Empidonax flycatcher singing, apparently on territory, in woodland habitats. I have mentioned these observations before, starting in 2004.
The habitat in which I find these birds( which I don't hear in northern Virginia before the end of the first week of June), is deciduous woodland, usually on the upper edge of flood plains but sometimes out of the flood plain on woodland slopes. In these habitats, I also hear Acadian flycatchers with their explosive songs given every 30-seconds to 1 minute; eastern wood-pewees singing and calling; and great crested flycatchers. I continue to hear these songs through the first week of July.
I have observed these birds numerous times; sometimes Acadians and/or pewees are within view. On a couple of occasions, I've seen 2 of these birds engage in what I take to be territorial defense. I cannot rule out that these "songs" I am hearing are some alternate vocalization of either of the other two small woodland flycatchers in the area.
I am assuming that what I am hearing are songs as the birds give these vocalizations from a perch. The vocalizations are repeated every 3-5 seconds and an individual may persist in this singing for 5-10 minutes from a single perch. The songs are given less frequently than those of least flycatchers and have a much sweeter, less raspy tone. The songs are much more frequently given than those of the Acadian, which to me is less "sweet" with more of an explosive burr.
I cannot rule out the purwee wood-pewee call but what I am hearing and seeing is interpreted as a song given its frequency and the typical tyrannid perch location.
I heard my first songs of these birds this year in the mixed pine-oak woodlands of Kiptopeake State Park, Northhampton County, VA at 7 AM on Sunday morning, June 10.
I next heard a single bird approx 50 yards upstream of the Colvin Run Mill creek bridge over Hunter Mill Rd downstream of Lake Fairfax, near Reston, Fairfax County on June 14 at approx. 1 PM. I observed this bird singing for approx. 3 minutes. Three other "traditional" territories where I have observed these birds over the past 3 years along this stream corridor have not yet been occupied by this bird this year. I was out listening for this bird also on June 13 in a short stretch of what I think of as its habitat but did not hear or see them.
Last night, June 14, I heard 2 of these birds singing in a woodlot next to my home in St Louis, VA, approx 5 miles west of Middleburg, VA in Loudoun County VA. The birds appeared to be engaged in territorial defense on either side of the road which divides this woodlot. I have also observed and heard them in this area in 2006 and 2005.
In all three of these cases, Acadian flycatchers were heard singing their song nearby. In both of the northern Virginia cases, wood-pewees were heard singing and calling nearby.
Last year, I heard these birds on the Maryland side of the Potomac during the Potomac Gorge Bioblitz on June 24, 2006. The birds were in Maryland, although I was in Virginia.
I'd appreciate it if birders in northern Virginia attempt to view and hear these birds. Most of my observations are along the upper Colvin Run Mill drainage from a number of its upstream tributaries starting upstream of Lake Fairfax and continuing along the main stream to its crossing of Rt 7. I expect someone will confirm that I am not hearing something unknown but rather am fixated on some different vocalizing behavior of either the Acadian or eastern wood-pewee. It is very late for yellow-bellied flycatchers and as these birds sing this song through June, this too rules out ybfls.
Thanks.
Craig Tufts
St Louis, Loudoun County
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