Heard today

[Biggsy]

...a short while ago from my garden.  What are these birds competing with the aeroplanes?

http://soundcloud.com/iceblinker/birdie001

http://soundcloud.com/iceblinker/birdie002

[longers]

I'm going to guess at mostly blackbird for the first. I'll be chuffed if it is.

[Clare]

Sounds like blackbirds.

we've heard yaffles, loads of them.

[Biggsy]

I don't know the answers, by the way, as I know little about birds and couldn't see any at the time of recording.  We do indeed get blackbirds round here, though.

At least three makes of birds are captured on the clips, including geese, and gulls briefly.  I don't know what models.

[LindaG]

The first one is a blackbird, and partway through it's song it's joined by a song thrush.  A duet!

[LindaG]

The second one begins with a blackbird, with geese on the chorus a little way in.  The blackbird sings again as the aeroplane starts descending.  There's a blue tit's alarm call just after that.  Then some intermittent blackbird.

The tit continues to alarm throughout after that, on and off.

Very atmospheric Biggsy!

You are lucky to have a thrush.  Toytown folk garden with slug pellets 

[Biggsy]

Thanks for the great info, Lindagordinho!

Next question: what are they saying exactly? 

[BrianI]

Forgot to turn my alarm clock off yesterday, so I was woken at 6:30am!

So a good excuse to pop out, and try my sony voice recorder & shotgun microphone to capture the dawn bird chorus at the public park behind the sorting office!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYUuPjWwRM

Interesting to hear the various bird calls, if anyone could help ID them? 

[Peter]

Brian, I think they are all pretty well one song thrush!

[Steph]

Brian, I think they are all pretty well one song thrush!

That's that's that's definitely definitely definitely a song a song a song thrush.



Thrush thrush.

[hatler]

Can anyone point me at which programme it was on R4 the other day that played the splendid recording of a seal 'talking' ?  I think it was a recording from an aquarium in the US.

[graculus]

Think it was 'Inside Science'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b085hs49

[hatler]

Think it was 'Inside Science'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b085hs49

Ooo. You star. Bang on. Thank you.

[Crumbling Nick]

Not today (I'm usually late ) & no sound recordings, but..

I was walking yesterday through Solihull to the "Nature reserve" centre in Brueton Park (in quotes partly because it's still a work in progress. Also, since it's accessible from Solihull it plays a crucial role in connecting urban children with outdoors, having fun & getting muddy ). Approaching an evergreen hedge I heard the unmistakable sound of a house sparrow, possibly more than one.

However, Solihull doesn't do house sparrows (I suspect they're not classy enough ). We've been here for 23 years & I haven't seen or heard any in the borough in that time. Since we had them nesting under our roof tiles in SW Lincolnshire before we moved to the West Midlands their absence was a big cultural shock.

Is it good news?

[Wowbagger]

I enjoyed Brian's song thrush. Fairly unusual at this time of year. I have heard them occasionally between early November and late January, but not that often. The two most recent examples that spring (!) to mind was one in the deep, deep frosts after Christmas 2004 (memorable for being the month my mother died) and another occasion on a group ride from London to Cambridge in November about 3 or 4 years ago. Jane, another chap and I were in a mini-group and somewhere in a village about 10 miles before Cambridge one started up.

[Crumbling Nick]

I love the song of our song thrushes. I was waiting for a bus, near Solihull railway station, somewhen in the first 2 weeks of December (post cardiac catheter ablation, so no cycling for 2 weeks). A song thrush was singing; it wasn't quite the confident & elaborated song of the spring mating season. I listened and enjoyed.

Looked back to December 2006, when I rode from home through the early hours of a quiet Saturday morning to join an acf Christmas ride starting at Long Eaton. The robins were the first songsters. A song thrush or two followed, a bit north of Tamworth .

[Crumbling Nick]

The birds are starting to sing.

This morning's commute was a classic. Patchy fog/mist near the water courses, but sun on the higher ground. I'd seen sunrise from the bedroom window, & when I emerged with bike, robins, great tits, the odd blue tit & what can only have been the liquid trills of a nuthatch greeted me.

As I descended to the Blythe valley, the mists reappeared and the birdsong stopped. This repeated. Every time I climbed (only 10 or 20m) out of the mists in the valleys, the birdsong reappeared.

Anyone for commuting by car  ?

[BrianI]

Sadly not had much time for getting out wildlife sound recording recently.   

Although I have uploaded a longer recording of the Song Thrush I recorded on new years day 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrrPUUsv1hY

[Crumbling Nick]

The song thrushes have been slowly starting to sing what I would describe as sub-songs. The pattern of repeated phrase has been unmistakable. I heard a few more on my ride to work today. As I arrived at work, put on work boots and waited for the motorised part of the work party to arrive, I heard my first song thrush of the season that had more than one phrase to repeat. It was still a work in progress, but still worth celebrating in the joyful sounds in semi-ancient woodland on a cold drizzly winter day.

[BrianI]

Woohoo, I got my new digital sound recorder today, an Olympus LS-14, which can record at 96khz, 24bit PCM file. Should be a significant step up from my old Sony voice recorder, which can only record in mp3.

Hopefully i'll get a chance to have a play at the weekend.   

[David Martin]

I've got the Bat Recorder app on my phone which does 250kHz (with the Ultramic attached). That gives a really portable ultrasonic recording setup.

[David Martin]

I took the opportunity to go on a ranger led walk whilst on holiday where she was teaching us differnet birdsongs. I must confess I have not retained much but I did rememebr one the next day as the tone of a song thrush is unmistakeable. I must practice more.

[HeltorChasca]

I took the opportunity to go on a ranger led walk whilst on holiday where she was teaching us differnet birdsongs. I must confess I have not retained much but I did rememebr one the next day as the tone of a song thrush is unmistakeable. I must practice more.

I can recommend Geoff Sample's 'Collins Bird Songs & Calls'. The CD collection 'chapterizes' calls into typical soundscapes and locations rather than the confusing taxonomical system. The intro is very useful as he 'trains' you to ID by sound. Easy when you are young but we loose the audio retention ability as we get older. And as you know in the U.K., most birds in the summer are heard and not seen. Tricky.

[David Martin]

Thanks, will give that a whirl.

[hbunnet]

I can recommend Geoff Sample's 'Collins Bird Songs & Calls'. The CD collection 'chapterizes' calls into typical soundscapes and locations rather than the confusing taxonomical system. The intro is very useful as he 'trains' you to ID by sound. Easy when you are young but we loose the audio retention ability as we get older. And as you know in the U.K., most birds in the summer are heard and not seen. Tricky.

I attended a BTO course yesterday, where this book was recommended.  It's a lovely book and the CDs are worth listening to in their own right.

We were given several mnemonics e.g   Song Thrush=ST= Shouty Thrush ;    Mistle Thrush=MT=Miserable Thrush.