I arrived at trail marker 36 at Murphy-Hanrehan around 4:45 this afternoon. Matt Stratmoen and another birder whose name I did not catch were already viewing the Tropical Kingbird on its perch at the top of the large Cottonwood tree to the north. Within ten minutes of my arrival, the three of us witnessed the bird stick out its neck, pull its wings behind its back, and utter a call. The call we heard was a short 1 second, fairly high-pitched, even trill. I had not read Bruce's description of the call beforehand too carefully, so when I read his email again after the fact, his description was spot on with what I heard. Admittedly I did not study up on either of the COKI or TRKI vocalizations before I arrived since the ID had already been made earlier in the day. However, when I got back to my car while the sound was still fresh in my memory, I listened to both COKI and TRKI on my Audubon Guide Bird App on my iPod. The first call (not song) listed under TRKI was the closest match to what I heard come from the bird in question.
After observing the bird for 20 minutes or so, it flew down to a low perch right along the path giving Matt and myself excellent looks. Josh Wallestad www.aboywhocriedheron.com ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
