[wisb] Red crossbill recordings wanted
- From: Nick Anich <nicka29@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wisbirdn <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:15:46 -0700 (PDT)
I got a note from Matt Young <may6@xxxxxxxxxxx> at the Cornell Laboratory of
Ornithology asking about Red Crossbill audio recordings, and he wanted me to
forward this to the list. Please reply directly to him.
I've sent him a couple recordings in the past and he was able to type them for
me.
(You can check eBird to see which types they were).
Nick Anich
Ashland, WI
Recordings for this species
are sorely needed from the upper Midwest and Great Lakes Region. There’s a
significant influx of birds currently taking place in Minnesota, Michigan, and
Wisconsin (Kansas too and few in Iowa as well).
If you don't know, the Red Crossbill complex is made up of 10 different
North American call types. On-going research may prove that some of these
call types are even separate species. Getting audio-recordings is essential
to solving the crossbill riddle. When you get a crossbill recording you (or
I) can run an audiospectrographic analysis to get a signature of the birds
voice, which then can be used to identify the individual (or flock) to call
type. These recordings will help us understand their ecology and
distribution better. Birds can be recorded by video camrecorders with
audio, expensive recording equipment, and even most cell phones now. I can
usually make a spectrogram of even pretty bad cell phone recordings. I
recently was able to easily identify a Type 1 in Tennessee that was recorded
via cell phone. Pretty amazing.
If you have been finding Red Crossbills currently or recently, please let
me know. I’d love to run the analysis on anyone’s recordings!
For a summary of information about Red Crossbill forms, see
http://research.amnh.org/vz/ornithology/crossbills/diagnosis.html
Also look here for differences in some of the crossbill Types:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/introduction-to%20crossbill-vocalizations
http://madriverbio.com/wildlife/redcrossbill/
Information for your area: As for Types that are most common in the Upper Great
Lakes, they are Types 2, 3, and 10. Types 3 and 10 (these are both
smallish-billed with Type 3 being smallest billed in NA and Type 10 being the
next smallest-billed) are most common in the Pacific Northwest, with Type 3
most associated with Western Hemlock and Type 10 most associated with Sitka
spruce. However, Type 10 is also the most frequently occurring Type in the
Northeast from Adirondacks of NY to northern Maine and likely southern
Maritimes (often using red and white spruce which isn’t that different than
Sitka spruce). Type 3 is highly irruptive in the east and often uses spruce and
Eastern hemlock. Dietary overlap can be great in the east, especially when you
have very hungry irruptive birds, and it’s not uncommon to find all types in
spruce or even occasionally white pine. With that said, Robert Payne studied
crossbills (1987) in the UP Michigan and found a
small billed bird to be relatively resident in the Marquette County Highlands.
It would be great to get more information on these birds since it’s unknown at
this time whether Payne’s work involved Type 3 or Type 10 (I hope to get up
there this year to get some recordings). As for the large-billed Type 2, it is
the most widespread type in NA, and can be fairly common at times in the east
(often in red pine and perhaps even Jack Pine or pitch pine), but is most
common in areas of Ponderosa pine in the west. Of the recent recordings I’ve
received so far, I’ve identified Type 3 and 10 from Wisconsin, and Type 2 in
Kansas.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Matthew A. Young
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