Clay-colored Sparrow in Trinity Bellwoods Park
On my Bird Walk in Trinity Bellwoods Park this morning I experienced a mini-fallout of song birds. During two hours of birding I found 13 species of warblers, including Northern Parula, American Redstart, Ovenbird, Blackburnian, Magnolia, and Chestnut-sided Warblers. There were also several Scarlet Tanagers, Lincoln’s Sparrows, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and dozens of White-crowned and White-throated sparrows.
The best bird of the day, however, was a singing Clay-colored Sparrow. This species breeds in shrubby open areas across central Canada and central northern United States, and is an uncommon visitor on the northern shore of Lake Ontario during migration.
Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, but I was carrying my new Remembird audio recorder. Here is a sample, including also the song of a Chipping Sparrow. Sibley describes the Clay-colored’s song as “a series of two to five rasping buzzes on one pitch zheee zheee zheee“.
All
very cool that you could record the song – how do you find the RembemBird overall? easy to use? How easy to you find it for looking up songs in the field, if you want to check your hunch?
Steve
May 20, 2011 at 12:23 pm
I like it. It is small, and portable. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, there are better (possessional) equipment, and perhaps most importantly the possibility to use an external microphone, but I just want to have a quick and easy way to record things that I come across, often for simple ID purposes. The audio quality is way better than what you get from a digital cameras, mp3 players, smart phones etc. It is a bit cumbersome to navigate the menus in order to listen to the included database of songs. I tend not to use it. In fact I also carry a small mp3 player which has the Birding by Ear CDs on them and the Stokes guide to bird songs. I use that when I want to listen to some song quickly when in the field. I do have some minor complaints about the device, see the forums http://www.remembird.com/phpBB3/. I recommend using a windshield to reduce wind noise.
Andreas Jonsson
May 20, 2011 at 3:40 pm