Outdoor Ontario

Request for Information => Bird ID => Topic started by: chovhani on May 21, 2010, 09:41:16 AM

Title: Help Identfying Bird by Song Please.
Post by: chovhani on May 21, 2010, 09:41:16 AM

We have a regular vistor to our Grey County farm (open fields, with treelines) who sings a very clear, bright song, and it's absolutely pitch perfect the tune from from the well-known ABC song children sing, the line "Now I know my ABCs". 7 notes. I have asked everywhere, nobody seems to have heard this.

Title:
Post by: Lloyd on May 21, 2010, 01:39:37 PM

Just a guess, possibly White Throated Sparrow? Go to WHATBIRD.COM and enter that species under search. You can hear it's song there.

Title:
Post by: Brian Bailey on May 21, 2010, 06:42:13 PM

That's a real puzzler. :?  

The closest I can think of is a White-crowned Sparrow.  You won't hear them in southern Ontario in the summer, but there have been lots passing through over the past couple of weeks.  I was surprised that I couldn't easily find what I would consider to be a typical call on the internet.  The closest I could find was here (http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?allSpecies=y&searchText=white-crowned%20sparrow&curGroupID=1&lgfromWhere=&curPageNum=1).  If you click the "listen" button, the part at the end is close to the call you'll hear in southern Ontario in May.

The sound drops in pitch toward the end (like the line in the song) and usually sounds somewhat buzzy.

BB

Title:
Post by: chovhani on May 22, 2010, 06:49:22 AM

Having seen white-crowned sparrows at our feeders I was really hopeful for this one. The tone is right, but not the tune. It says that song dialects vary locally, so although this recording does not match I won't write him off.

My daughter pointed out last night that the tune I am referring to is also that of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star". And this bird has it right.