New 'monics

As birders know, transliterating bird calls is never accurate or precise. I have read some debates about whether or not it is practical to do so (to form mnemonics for identification), but I generally think it works most of the time. Some people believe the main problem with transliterations is that bird calls often sound like different syllables to different people, and so appear written differently in each book (field guide). I do not consider this a problem, because in my field experience I have imagined words words for bird calls I've heard that are different from what I've seen written in the field guides. Some examples (click on the name of the bird for a link to the recording):

Least Tern

This recording is a little confused because there are a lot of them calling at once, but at certain points you can hear them go "Reykjavik! Reykjavik! Reykjavik!" It's too bad there are no least terns in Iceland.

Carolina Wren

This is a very variable song but I've found this particular variation to be the most common. It is usually transliterated as "teakettle teakettle teakettle" but I hear "tweet eater tweet eater tweet eater". Does this make more sense or less sense with the advent of Twitter?

Yellow Warbler

Most field guides only transliterate the "type A" song of the yellow warbler, usually as "sweet sweet sweet sugary sweet!", which is accurate. However, I have often found the "type B" song, which is easily confused with those of some other warblers, to be just as common. Because the similar song of the chestnut-sided warbler used to be written "see see see Ms. Beecher", I put in a name for this yellow warbler song as well. I hear it as "see see see Chester Biddlechick".

Blackburnian Warbler

I haven't seen this written out as words, but I hear "chewy chewy chewy chewy cheeeeese!!" (The first time on this recording is at 0:12)

Scarlet Tanager

This one really ruffles my feathers. In every field guide I've seen, this has been written as a hard or hoarse "chip-burr" or something like that - in a couple of cases "chip-churr" and in one instance even described as a dry rattle! The Audubon Society field guide comes closer by using the adjective "twanging", but still it transliterates it as "chip-burr". Nowhere does anyone come close to the metallic ringing quality I hear in this sound. I have always heard it as "tick-bang". The field guide descriptions actually led me astray, and before I saw a scarlet tanager making this sound, I couldn't identify the sound. Go out to your nearest woods or large park (if you're in eastern North America) and try to find this sound. It's a relatively common bird and they're nesting now. Tell me it isn't "tick-bang"!

-Elijah

Birds of paradise- final update: penguins and knees

About a week ago I finally got to see some of the "lost" bird-of-paradise specimens at the American Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures, but I did make some decisions for myself about whether or not certain forms are hybrids. For example, the specimen of Wilhelmina's Bird of Paradise, which in the book was considered a probable hybrid between the so-called Magnificent and Superb birds of paradise, looked to me very much like a separate species. If it were somehow proven that it was, I think instead of Wilhelmina's it should have a superlative name (taking the example of the Superb and Magnificent), such as the Marvelous, Spectacular or Awesome Bird of Paradise. *

What would a female Superb, accustomed to this...

see in this Magnificent, anyway?

On a related topic, there is another Renaissance Dutch painting reproduced in the Fuller/Attenborough book that is just as thought-provoking as the scene with the owl that I posted about earlier. This is a painting of the Garden of Eden by Jan Brueghel the Elder. (Unfortunately I cannot find a large enough/high resolution enough photo of it online- look it up.) In addition to Greater Birds of Paradise and plenty of other accurately depicted animals, it contains a penguin that appears to have external knees. At the turn of the 17th century, when this was painted, penguins were very poorly known to Western man; it is understandable that certain details of their appearance would be likewise unclear. However, since no living birds have external knees (except for certain domestic breeds of pigeons), some people, such as Brueghel, could have even been uncertain that penguins were birds at all. Judging from the knees that Brueghel gave his penguin, it is likely he thought its closest relative was the frog.

Even as late as 1930 some people thought penguins were plants.

This book sets things straight about penguin knees, by the way.

-Elijah

*I would have put in Wonderful but that name is used for another of the "lost" ones, which, by the way, is almost definitely a hybrid. I can confirm that.

How does this turnstone feel?

Here is a photo that was very recently posted on the Internet Bird Collection. It was taken last summer on an island off the coast of Germany and shows a phalarope apparently picking something off the feathers of a turnstone (the bird that this blog is named for). Though someone who is unfamiliar with these birds could think this is an example of a symbiotic relationship like the one between bee-eaters and bustards in Ethiopia, it is in fact rare and exceptional. Phalaropes usually attract their prey by spinning. Perhaps there was a particularly tasty fly about to bite the turnstone. The phalarope, which (given the time of year) was stopping here on its spring migration to the Arctic, could have been both hungry after a long flight and too tired to do that spinning dance for its food. It wouldn't have cared that the fly it saw was only sitting there because it was busy biting a bird. It is impossible to tell from this photo what exactly is going on, but since the caption says the phalarope is apparently picking insects off, it can be assumed that it isn't simply chasing or harassing the turnstone, which would be much more likely. At any rate, what the phalarope is most decidedly NOT doing is picking bugs off out of empathy for the turnstone.
I'd say the turnstone must be uncomfortable about feeling an unexpected beak on its back.

-Elijah

P. S. There could be another reason that the phalarope is not doing phalaropey things. Unlike most birds, female phalaropes are larger and more dominant and territorial than males. They leave the males to deal with the eggs and chicks. Maybe this male phalarope was simply too nervous to think straight.