Adding to Bob Dunlap’s useful comments on Red Crossbill call types…
I would recommend an easy way to obtain recordings of vocalizing crossbills (or
any bird, for that matter) is to set your smartphone to camera mode, select the
video setting, try to get as close to the bird as possible, and start
recording. Then either email or text the video (which contains the sounds on
the video) to either Bob or Matt Young ([email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>) who can make a sonogram and identify the Type. When
I did this last Sunday, I had a response from Matt within 10 minutes!
There are also several free recording apps available which you install on your
phone, work like a tape recorder, and are easy to use. I use Voice Recorder &
Audio Editor by TapMedia Ltd, but there are others which I’m sure are just as
good or better. It makes a .wav file which I can then email or text just like a
photo or video.
You can also easily attach your Red Crossbill audio files to your eBird reports
of bird sightings. Hope this helps…
Kim Eckert, Duluth
On Sep 4, 2017, at 5:21 PM, Bob Dunlap <[email protected]> wrote:
As many birders are aware, Minnesota is experiencing a Red Crossbill
irruption. The majority of reports are coming from the western third of the
state but there are also reports from the past few weeks of birds farther
north and east.
For the past month I have been working with Matt Young of Cornell on
identifying these birds to type. As of today we have identified four types
from recordings sent to us: Types 2, 3, 4, and 5. Note that on August 13,
Justin Watts recorded the first Type 4 in Minnesota on the North Shore;
since then, many recordings from southwest Minnesota have been confirmed as
Type 4. Type 2 has also been frequently recorded in western Minnesota since
mid-August, and other reports from western Minnesota and elsewhere in the
state have been confirmed as Type 3. Yesterday, Dennis and Barbara Martin
recorded a flock of birds in Lincoln County that comprised three types,
including as many as four birds confirmed as the first Type 5 in Minnesota.
Only a handful of birds have been identified as Type 5 east of the Rockies,
and according to Matt Young the four birds recorded by the Martins also
represents the largest number of Type 5 to be found east of the Rockies.
See eBird for current and confirmed reports of the various types in
Minnesota and elsewhere.
All of the above records refer to birds originating from western North
America. The other type that has been confirmed in Minnesota, Type 10, may
be our "regular breeder" in the state and has been confirmed in
north-central Minnesota in June; elsewhere in the midwest Type 10 has also
been associated with the current irruption (and note that Types 2 and 10
occur in both western and eastern North America). Cone production is
apparently very poor in western North America this year, which is why these
birds are roaming east.
Although it is often possible to discern that more than one Red Crossbill
type is present in a flock based on differing call notes, identifying those
types without studying a recording of their calls via sonogram is extremely
difficult and I would argue cannot be done with confidence. Thankfully the
calls are quite distinctive when analyzed via sonogram...see Matt Young's
2012 article which remains an excellent source on the subject (
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/recrtype/).
I'm happy to analyze any recordings of Red Crossbill calls sent to me. If
you have such a recording and would like to learn more, please contact me
by replying to this email.
Bob Dunlap
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