Oops, I overlooked that the call was from May 12, which would be in the window
for a spring migrant in NY, though the call sounds doesn’t sound like it is
from a bird in flight.
Bill E
From: Bill Evans
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 9:38 AM
To: Benjamin Van Doren ; Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
Cc: NFC-L
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] Red-headed Woodpecker?
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
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2012 7:36 PM
To: Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
Cc: NFC-L
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> 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> 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
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