Saturday, July 28, 2012

Feathered Friday: Black-capped Chickadee

Today we add another family of birds to our growing Online Life List--Family Paridae. Now let's meet one of its members: the Black-capped Chickadee.



I selected the chickadee to feature this week because I just discovered something new about this species, one of my favorite birds. What did I discover?  A new song!  I thought I knew most if not all of this bird's vocalizations, but I was wrong.  Specifically, I knew that his call is "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" and that his song is typically a two-syllable vocalization that sounds like "fee-bee."  But all my years living in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania (I now live in Adams County), I never noted another of the chickadee's songs, one that to my ear sounds like "cheeseburger."

For months I've been listening to birds (in the woodland behind my property) singing "cheeseburger, cheeseburger," but I could never spot them with my binoculars. So the other day I went online and searched Google with the question, "What birdsong sounds like "cheeseburger."  And would you believe it?  I found several web pages and Youtube videos, all attributing this song to the Black-capped Chickadee. (Listen to a Youtube video I found online.)

Now how is it possible that I'd never heard this particular chickadee song before moving to Gettysburg? Could it be a regional difference? For instance,  do chickadees in the Gettysburg area sing "cheeseburger" but not those a few hours north where I used to live? I'm tempted to think so because this "cheeseburger" song is SO conspicuous that I most definitely would have heard it before now.  Too, the song must be seasonal as well, since my wintering chickadees were not singing "cheeseburger, cheeseburger."  (But then most birds sing only during breeding season; during non-breeding season their vocalizations are generally calls.)

Listen to the video below and see what you can hear.



Until next time . . . Keep birds in your heart!

Georgia Anne


Friday, July 20, 2012

Feathered Friday: the Gray Catbird



A computer crash prevented me from posting last week to Feathered Friday, so please forgive the omission. 

Today I'm posting on another member of the Family Mimidae--the Gray Catbird.  Members of this family we've thus far met include the Northern Mockingbird (see May 18, 2012 post) and the Brown Thrasher (post prior to this one).  The Northern Mockingbird and Gray Catbird regularly visit my yard, so I hear them singing all the time. The video here provides many samples of the catbird's songs, comparing these to their original sources--the birds (or frog!) from whom the catbird fashioned his "stylings."

I found this useful fact from the web (see link and citation below): "Catbird songs can last many minutes and include more than a hundred different sounds. You can tell a catbird's song from a mockingbird's song by the number of repetitions in a row. A mockingbird will repeat a phrase or sound three times in a row or more, but a catbird will use each phrase once. And of course, catbirds usually throw in a meow."

The Westborough News, June 29, 2007 (by Annie Reid)
http://westboroughlandtrust.org/nn/nn78.php

I highly recommend that you visit the page above to learn many more interesting facts about the Gray Catbird, because that "mewing" you hear in the dense shrubbery may not be a neighbor's cat after all . . .

Until next time . . . Keep birds in your heart!

Georgia Anne 

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Feathered Friday: the Brown Thrasher



Feathered Friday sometimes flies away from me; then I must post on Saturday. So here's this week's featured bird (one day late): the Brown Thrasher, a member of the Family Mimidae.

Let's add the Thrasher to our growing Online Life List, where he'll join the Northern Mockingbird, also a songster who likes to mimic other birds, frogs, and interesting sounds, generally.  If you want to compare the Thrasher's songs with that of the Mockingbird, check out my post of May 18, 2012. 

Yet Another bird of the Family Mimidae has been serenading me in the backyard for weeks.  Check back next Friday to learn the identify of this bird, for now our "mystery mimic."

Until next time . . . Keep birds in your heart!

Georgia Anne