[wisb] Lake Park, Milwaukee, 6/5/11 - Predatory crow, interesting catbird, plus one new BIGBY species
- From: "B.G. Sloan" <bgsloan2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wisbirdn <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2011 14:29:30 -0700 (PDT)
This morning I did my final spring Lake Park transect, collecting data for one
of Bill Mueller's research projects. Afterwards I birded the rest of Lake Park.
Pretty quiet, but I did have a couple of interesting birds, and I picked up
another BIGBY species, bringing my 2011 BIGBY count to 183 species. (What's a
BIGBY? See: http://bit.ly/iDHq3D).
A couple of highlights:
* I was sitting at a bench enjoying the nice weather when I noticed a crow
quietly sitting on a tree branch. It was standing very still and peering
intently at the ground. The bird was really focused! Suddenly the crow dropped
to the ground and pounced on something. It came up with a small rodent in its
bill (mouse? vole?) and flew to a nearby tree limb to have a leisurely
breakfast. I've only seen this happen once before, years ago in my yard in
central Illinois. (I also watched a pair of crows in that yard try
unsuccessfully to distract adult rabbits in order to get a baby rabbit).
* Spotted a Brown Thrasher at the very southern tip of Lake Park, along the
bluff. That's BIGBY species #183 for the year.
Finding the Brown Thrasher reminded me of something last week in Lake Park. I
was trying to locate the source of a bird song. I was pretty sure the bird was
a Brown Thrasher or perhaps even a Northern Mockingbird (long shot, of course).
When I tracked down the source of the song, I was surprised to find a Gray
Catbird. Why was I surprised? The bird was repeating song fragments
consecutively. Sometimes two in a row, and every now and then three times.
I've always heard that catbirds never repeat the elements in their song. For
example, Peterson says, of the mockingbird's song: "Song a varied prolonged
succession of notes and phrases, each repeated a half-dozen times or more
before changing. (Thrasher usually repeats once, catbird does not repeat)." BNA
Online says of the catbird: "Syllables are not given in fixed sequence and are
seldom repeated consecutively although they are often repeated throughout song."
I've only encountered one other catbird singing like this before, in a nature
preserve in southern Indiana. I always think it's fascinating to find a common
bird doing something they're not supposed to be able to do.
Bernie Sloan
Milwaukee
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