At 1pm I was just about to set foot on the south end of Podell Boardwalk returning from a lunchtime circuit of the pond but lingered to watch 2 HAIRY WOODPECKER females chasing each other from tree to tree. Interesting that they were both female: much squeaking and peeking but no flicka’ing though they landed on the same tree several times and eyeballed each other.
To my east, I thought I heard a weird monotonic dog bark, but then the BARRED OWL must have turned to face me because 30 sec later it was a very clear WHO_COOKS_FOR_YOU without the following WHO_WA growl on the end. I estimate it was in the evergreens by the two gates on Sapsucker Woods but I walked back up and scanned for 15 min without a further call or a visual. Also on this walk, I heard again an unusual call from an EASTERN PHOEBE that I noticed a few weeks ago when the first one arrived. At that time, there was only one, so the call was spontaneous, but today my attention was drawn to it because 2 of them spatted and one landed on a low branch, making both straightforward chips and then a soft ‘chi-bew’ (‘bew’ lower than ‘chi’) sound that is similar to some other flycatchers, interspersed with the chips. This time, it seemed to be a reaction sequence to the ‘fight’. I did not see how far away the other one was but think it was within 20’. ChrisP ______________________ Chris Pelkie Information/Data Manager; IT Support Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
