Sonograms

So it was pointed out to me that the sonogram that I posted yesterday needed zooming in to reveal detail, so I've had a play on Raven Lite again and zoomed in to reveal detail, but also compared the original recordings sonogram and the edited versions.

Original Sonogram

Edited Sonogram

Although the sonogram has a little less 'interference' on the edited version I think the original shows the shape of the call better than the edited version, something worth bearing in mind when producing future sound recordings.

Also had a look on Xeno Canto at Bullfinch recordings

http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Pyrrhula-pyrrhula

Doesn't take long to realise the variation in the calls of the 'Eurasian' Bullfinch, also never realised how many ssp there are!

Bullfinches and Sound Recordings

So I finally decided to get some sound recording equipment, have been thinking about getting some for a few years now but finally found a decent set up for sensible money. Looked into Parabolic reflectors which work out at horrendously expensive! Probably best part of £1,500 new and not a lot of second hand options!

Settled for a Sennheiser MKE-300 shotgun mic that I got off eBay for £70 and a Olympus LS-3 recorder for £120 off Amazon.

So although my mic hadn't come in by the time I set off to Upton Warren this morning I had a play around with trying to record various birds. Limited by the reach without the mic and the wind, I focused on trying to record the Bullfinches that were visiting the feeding station at the Moors.

Managed a decent recording of a male near the hide

The first track is what came off the recorder and the second one is what it sounded like after I'd played with it in Audacity. Following this article https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62295188/audacity/usingaudacity.pdf its amazing how easily (admittedly not at first but keep trying and re-reading the article!) background noise can be removed leaving you with the calls that you want!

From this recording I then used Raven Lite to produce this sonogram  

(Raven Lite and Audacity are both free downloads from links above!)

The Bullfinch calls are the dark thick lines towards the bottom (2 Redwing calls are the down slurred line above them).

After reading this blog post https://sites.google.com/site/tg23birdininabox/daily-dairy/bullfinches it seems that you can seperate our British P.p.pileata from the European P.p.europea on call. Not massively obvious when listening to the recordings but look at the sonogram and you can see the birds from Upton today are a straight line but the europea birds from Norfolk show a slight dip in this line.

Exactly why I invested in this sound recording gear, and will probably be the topic of plenty more blog posts to come!

Avocets have returned and slowly increasing almost daily with 16 birds on site now. 13 pairs fledged 30+ youngsters last year, will they better that this year?

Hope that wasn't too boring a blogpost, going to try and record some local Crossbills tomorrow, so no doubt another sonoographically related blog post to follow if I am successful!

Any tips on sound recording etc gratefully received!

12th February-4th March

So after my last post I stayed at Spurn till the 20th, fairly quiet on the birding front, saw what was presumably the same Grey Phalarope fly north on the 13th, turns out there's never been a Grey Phal in the Jan-June period at Spurn before!

Other highlight was 2 overnight wader ringing sessions on the 18th and 19th, resulting in a total of 3 Oystercatchers, 65 Knot (plus a Dutch and British control), 7 Dunlin and 3 Redshank which was some brilliant experience with a large catch of Knot on the 19th, as we were extracting the Knot the first Avocets of the year were calling around Kilnsea Wetlands! 

                                                        dusk Merlin

 Barn Owl from Long Bank

Got upto 91sp and 112 points for patchwork challenge, should be down for a bit in March before going to Israel at the end of the month, see if I can get 100sp up before Spring gets into full swing!

Since Spurn I spent some time in London, mainly to see my girlfriend but had a wander round Hyde Park for an afternoon on the 26th, plenty of bird life here despite the crowds and surrounding city! Spent most of the afternoon trying to read metal rings on Black-headed Gulls! Managed to fully read a Swedish and a British ring and a regular polish Darvic'd bird put in an appearance.

Managed to use up all the battery on my camera but not before I'd photographed a presumed female Tufted x Pochard on the lake

Interesting bird, good to get experience with a female after the multiple drakes in the LDV last winter

A surprise was a Mealy Redpoll that was around the Italian Fountain feeding away in a Silver Birch seemingly oblivious to the lady trying to feed it bread below! 

Although not the best sound of a bird in Britian the parakeets add a nice splash of colour to the grey city! Another bonus of all the people are the tame birds, managed to hand feed a Robin, Blue Tit and several Great Tits, bit 'dudey' but great fun!!!

Since being back in Birmingham me and Dad made the most of a good forecast and headed into the Forest of Dean, brilliant mornings birding highlights being 2 Hawfinch and 6+ Goshawk, never tire of Goshawk and they put on a great show at New Fancy with almost constant activity for the 2 hours we were there.

Spurn 5th-11th

So I arrived at Spurn last Wednesday (5th) afternoon started with a Guillemot that had been picked up on the road that morning, after a while in the bath and eating plenty of squid it was ringed and released on Borrow Pit and had gone by the next morning so presumably fine and flew back out to sea.

The next few days I were fairly quiet just adding a few year ticks for the Patchwork Challenge that I'm doing at Spurn this year, Marsh Harrier, Little Gull and Pintail being the pick of the crop. Caught up with the 1w Black Brant on the 8th and a Grey Phalarope was a nice surprise on the 9th flying north past the seawatching hide, first 6 points of the year.

Recent work has included clearing vegetation in church field, taking down the viewing screen and building a new duck trap which will hopefully catch us some Teal.

Made a trip up north to see the Yellow-rumped Warbler where after only 5 mins on site we received the news that there had been a Fea's Petrel messing about off Spurn for nearly 10 mins! Hopefully this bird is lingering/wintering in the north sea and I'll get another chance to see it!

Had an afternoon in York gulling being quite productive with the 3w Kumlien's being seen, cracking bird!

Kumlien's courtesy of Adam Hutt

So far the 11th has been a write off, heavy rain and winds hence the blog post! Hoping to get out this afternoon though. Up to 63 species and 78 points so far for Spurn, still plenty of easy species to clear up on.

Bluetail

Quick twitch down to see the Bluetail near Bristol this afternoon, managed to continue my brilliant start to 2014 with my 9th long awaited lifer!

Managed to tatically leave Spurn last autumn when despite it blowing south easterly I'd said they weren't coming from anywhere so I should be alright leaving! Mistake Red-flanked Bluetail turned up that afternoon!

Managed to grip it back this afternoon, wouldn't say no to another at Spurn this year though!

Not the best of light so shot at ISO-1600, cracking location though and bird shows really well at times, even heard it calling at one point, similar to Redstart!

Can't find the BB with ageing criteria in it but presume this is a 1w male due to blue wash on coverts evident in some pics? Be nice if it colours up and starts singing in next few weeks!

Off to Spurn for a few weeks tomorrow, will try and update the blog semi-regularly

Recent birding

So quick post to catch up on some good recent birding

4 days in Ireland 17th-20th Jan was very productive, will cover this in a separate blog post to follow.

27th Jan

Went to Coleshill Parkway to see the Hume's Leaf Warbler that had been found over the weekend, bird showed the whole time we were there sometimes deep in cover but always very mobile as expected, first views in bright sunshine it seemed quite bright but then consequent views showed the expected dull buff flanks and dull grey green mantle, call pretty quite similar to Yellow-browed at times but others more slurred and less di-sylabic. Managed a dodgey shot of it whilst practicing with my new digiscoping rig, not bad considering situation I'd say

We then walked round the corner to the Sewage outflow where 3 Sibe Chiffchaffs had been reported from the previous day, we managed to see 4 'normal' Chiffchaffs and a single non-calling Sibe type bird

Carried on round to Brownhills where the Adult Glossy Ibis preformed superbly in the first horse paddock, just a shame the coating is coming off on my Leica scope which makes everything a bit foggy!

Continuing onto Stubber's Green where despite there only being around 100 large gulls present the usual Ad Iceland Gull and an Ad Yellow-legged Gull showed well, a heard only Waxwing flew over the back of the pool

28th

Met up with Craig Reed aka Midlands Birder to head up to Cheshire to catch up with the long staying Buff-bellied Pipit, arriving around 09:30 it took a while to locate the bird in with the Meadow Pipits and Linnets feeding on the tide line debris, but once it decided to show it was nice and obvious and eventually showed down to about 20ft including perching up on an upright log for a few minutes cracking bird! 

Whilst watching it this cracker flew from the hedgerow behind us and landed on the fence line in front! It then demanded our attention but most of the crowd weren't bothered by it, paid off for two of us when it came and practically perched at our feet being too close to focus on at times! Calling like a muted Bullfinch the whole time as well!

We then dipped a Great White dot at Parkgate before heading round to Pensarn to try for the Surf Scoters there. When we arrived an already present birder had already picked out 2 drakes and in the brilliant sunshine and still conditions it was clear there was a female paired to one of the males, bit of a surprise but robbed from a (weak) find as one had actually been reported on the 16th, good to see neverless my first female and an educational bird.

A brilliant couple days birding.

smithsonianus

Interesting looking gull showing American Herring Gull features in the field opposite the Red Lion, Upper Poppleton this afternoon between 14:50-14:54 before flying off back towards the tip/to roost.

-Obviously paler head still with plenty of darker streaking in the head area but with very heavy streaking in the neck area creating an very obvious shawl

-Two toned bill with darker tip and paler base

-very dark uniform dark underparts

-dark bases to the greater coverts with increasing darkness towards outer coverts

-largely dark tertials with reduced white notching restriced to the tip

-uniformly smokey axilliaries with no hint of pale markings on the feathers

-dark secondary bar

-some retained juvenile scapulars

-large robust structure

To be totally honest the bird stretched its tail almost as soon as I got onto it and it appeared to be very dark, however as I wasn't really concentrating fully having only just got onto the bird I wouldn't like to 100% say that it had an all dark tail but it would appear that way.

The nigling features on the bird are the undertail coverts which don't appear to be very heavily barred, although the photos are over exposed due to looking into the light but it did appear that way in the field, although better views of under/uppertail coverts and tail would be nice! 

1w Black Brant

Checking through the brents near Beacon Ponds this morning I noticed a large neck collar on a bird that I thought would be worth a check for Black Brant, I was surprised to see that it belonged to a 1cy/1w bird! Having never seen a 1w bird before I was initially a bit cautious but having done some research online this afternoon I'm happy that it is indeed a 1w Black Brant, a very educational bird.

Bird didn't appear to be associating with any other adults or 1w birds.

large white neck collar with a small break at the back

contrasting white flank patch, not as extensive as in adults

Unbroken neck collar at the front with a thick base line 

Showing the darker mantle shade when compared to 1w DB Brent, not as black as an adult

no brown tones noted on the mantle unlike 1w DB Brent