And...sound is amplified when reflected off the smooth surface of water. Similar to how, from shore, you can hear people vocalizing while they are boating or swimming out on a lake or pond, even though they may be relatively far away. It all makes sense now.
Good discussion, though. Sincerely, Chris T-H On Aug 7, 2012, at 11:21 AM, Benjamin Van Doren wrote: Chris - Unfortunately, that salt marsh is close to relatively dense suburban areas, with houses as close as 0.5 km (right across the harbor channel) and a golf course directly adjacent to it. I am not that surprised that a sound like this drifted across the water, although it is better recorded than I would expect even for that distance. Benjamin On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes <c...@cornell.edu<mailto:c...@cornell.edu>> wrote: Fascinating. The sound is remarkably similar in structure to Red-headed Woodpecker, when viewed as a spectrogram (I had initially only listened to it with my iPhone); however, I notice that this example does start off with intense modulation, followed by a more pure tone. This is different from the examples of Red-headed Woodpecker given on the Evans and O'Brien Night Flight Calls CD-ROM. In those examples, the known and presumed Red-headed Woodpecker flight calls start off more pure-toned and become modulated, not the other way around. This being human in nature also explains the harmonic pure-tone squeaks prior to the vocalization (that of a swing or see saw, perhaps). Benjamin, do you know if there is a playground or yard nearby? I assumed from your description that this was out in a salt marsh, away from human habitation, perhaps wrongfully so. I would like to second Bill's note of how similar Virginia Rail "k'kreeer" calls can be to the Red-headed Woodpecker calls. I recorded a high number of Virginia Rail vocalizations this spring-summer, many of which were the "k'kreeer" calls. Good birding! Sincerely, Chris T-H On Aug 7, 2012, at 10:29 AM, Benjamin Van Doren wrote: Amazing. Bill, I think your first impression may be right. I went back to the original file (which I had gone back to, but hadn't looked more than several seconds on both sides of the sound in question to see if there was anything related). Sure enough, starting about 8 seconds earlier I start to see these thin, squeaky sounds just like the very soft one you can hear immediately preceding the scream, interspersed with some child-like sounds. I.e., a girl on a squeaky swing. When I first saw the recording I briefly considered the human possibility, but the shape of the call and the modulation looked decidedly avian when originally sandwiched between two Veeries in my window of calls to classify. I noted that it didn't sound exactly like it was coming from the sky (with some reflection present, etc.) but didn't think too much of it. Easy to forget there are other, non-avian things producing sounds out there at night... Guess it's all about context! Benjamin On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Bill Evans <wrev...@clarityconnect.com<mailto:wrev...@clarityconnect.com>> wrote: My first impression was a scream from a girl on a swing set. I then quickly came around to agreeing with Ben’s first impression and Chris. Pretty early for migrant RHWO though, as based on my experience their southbound migration in NY is the latter half of September and early October – perhaps it’s a wandering bird. The only caveat on the ID comes up for me when I went back to listen to the RHWO calls on the Flight Call Guide. I noticed a similarity with Virginia Rail “McGreer” type calls, though RHWO sounds lower-pitched. But the question arises whether we can 100% rule out a rail vocalization? Bill E From: Benjamin Van Doren<mailto:bmvando...@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2012 7:36 PM To: Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes<mailto:c...@cornell.edu> Cc: NFC-L<mailto:nf...@list.cornell.edu> Subject: Re: [nfc-l] Red-headed Woodpecker? Hi Chris, Thanks for the feedback. Never recorded an NFC of one before--very cool. This was recorded at 9:18 PM, just over an hour after sunset (8:04 PM), with the Song Meter 2 setup by Wildlife Acoustics, Inc. (with the NFC plate mic). The whole thing was on a sandbar in a saltmarsh, and I built a wooden contraption that slides onto a rebar to hold both the SM2 and mic (can't have anything resting on the ground in case there is a very high tide). Has worked very well. Benjamin On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 7:19 PM, Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes <c...@cornell.edu<mailto:c...@cornell.edu>> wrote: I, personally, see no hesitation with assigning the ID as that of Red-headed Woodpecker. Nice clean recording, too. What time of night was this? What is your microphone and recorder setup? Thanks, Ben! Sincerely, Chris T-H Sent from my iPhone On Aug 6, 2012, at 18:25, "Benjamin Van Doren" <bmvando...@gmail.com<mailto:bmvando...@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi All, The attached recording is from 12 May 2012. My first thought is that it sounds pretty good for Red-headed Woodpecker, although not exactly right for what I'm used to (diurnally). In the Flight Call Guide (Evans & O'Brien), however, the presumed RHWO nocturnal recordings do show a good amount of variation, so perhaps this does best fit that species. Red-headed Woodpeckers are very uncommon in my area but do occasionally occur as migrants and sometimes winter residents. In the recording there seems to be a soft cluck-like sound right before the call, too soft for me to really make out but American Robin-like. I don't really see the main vocalization being a robin, though, unless it is a very weird one... The microphone was located along the coast in a saltmarsh, but not too far from woods (and people). Thoughts welcome! Benjamin Van Doren White Plains, NY -- NFC-L List Info: Welcome and Basics<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_WELCOME> Rules and Information<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_RULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Archives: The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> Surfbirds<http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L> BirdingOnThe.Net<http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html> Please submit your observations to eBird<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! -- <MM.20120512.211836.06.sel000285_LONG.wav> -- NFC-L List Info: Welcome and Basics<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_WELCOME> Rules and Information<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_RULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Archives: The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> Surfbirds<http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L> BirdingOnThe.Net<http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html> Please submit your observations to eBird<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! -- -- NFC-L List Info: Welcome and Basics<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_WELCOME> Rules and Information<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_RULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Archives: The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> Surfbirds<http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L> BirdingOnThe.Net<http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html> Please submit your observations to eBird<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! -- -- Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes Field Applications Engineer Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 W: 607-254-2418<tel:607-254-2418> M: 607-351-5740<tel:607-351-5740> F: 607-254-1132<tel:607-254-1132> http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp -- NFC-L List Info: Welcome and Basics<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_WELCOME> Rules and Information<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_RULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Archives: The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> Surfbirds<http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L> BirdingOnThe.Net<http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html> Please submit your observations to eBird<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! -- -- Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes Field Applications Engineer Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 W: 607-254-2418 M: 607-351-5740 F: 607-254-1132 http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
