Clear skies with chilly temperatures made for a nice quiet night, weather-wise. Except for a distant eagle calling at 2:30, the only thing I heard until nearly daylight was River Otters chirping. The started about 2:35 and continued through almost 4. They were so faint for much of that time, I suspect in other weather conditions, I would not have caught them. Once it started getting light, I did pick up more calls, as expected. Ravens led off the morning dialog with the first calls at 6:35. About 10 minutes later, the first Bald Eagle added its voice. I was treated to a Trumpeter Swan flyby a few minutes before 7. It must not have been too close, as I couldn’t hear the feather whistling, but the calls were fairly distinctive. I also picked up a couple of other new species for these recordings, a Hair Woodpecker and Dark-eyed Juncos.
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Trumpeter Swan: At first I was not even sure this was an animal call. After a couple of listens I realized it sounded like a swan, and a quick check of the Birds of Alaska CD confirmed it. Download Trumpeter Swan
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Hairy Woodpecker: I am not absolutely sure about this call, but I’m confident that it’s a woodpecker. Although it seems clear the woodpecker must be flying from left to right, the wingbeats that are heard in this clip are probably from a Raven, not the woodpecker.
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Dark-eyed Juncos: These juncos were getting after each other a bit. In recent days I have been realizing that I have not seen many Dark-eyed Juncos around lately. I’m not sure why that is, but apparently they’ve returned to the neighborhood for at least one morning.
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Another quiet night weather-wise. Despite the good listening conditions throughout the night, I did not pick up much on the recording. There was a distant Western Screech-Owl near 7am that I was barely able to pick out from the almost as distant raven calls. A raven gave a brief croak around 2:30am, perhaps an interesting dream? The first morning bird of the day was a Bald Eagle just before 6:30, the Ravens were next about 10 minutes later.
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Mystery Call: I have no idea what made this noise.
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Songbird Chirps: Context seems to be fairly important for identification at times. I’m pretty sure these are chirps from a Dark-eyed Junco right outside the window. I know it’s a small song bird, but without being able to see the bird, I’m not positive about the id. Normally such chirps would alert me and I would look to see the bird. Most likely, even a quick flash would be enough to id it at that point, but without more context, I’m not confident in the id with just the sounds.
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Rain, heavy at times (with some associated wind) periodically through the night. Between showers there was a pretty steady dripping of water. I did notice the sound of the drops off the roof have changed. I think it’s because the leaves have fallen off the salmonberries that are growing against the house. Got the best capture yet of the Mystery Bird that sounds rather shorebird-like. Also picked up Marbled Murrelets between 5:40 and 6.
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Mystery Call: These are the strongest three calls I got. I could hear 7 of them all together, starting quietly, building in strength and then fading again. Presumably that represents a flyby, but I still don’t know what species it might be. The shorebirds I would expect to be seeing this time of year do not sound like this, as far as I know.
It started out calm, but the wind picked up a little before 2. There was a far distant Western Screech-owl calling for a little while. It was quite faint, and I would not have noticed it had the wind not been still at that point. The first Marbled Murrelet call I caught was at 01:17, quite early. I didn’t notice any more until around 4:30 and then again at 5:30.
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Marbled Murrelets: I suspect all of these are Marbled Murrelets. I’m confident in the first one, and the last part of the second, but less so about the others, as the calls are more like chirps than the ‘keer’ calls of Marbled Murrelets. However, I would not be surprised if Marbled Murrelets chirp also. The initial chirps in the second clip have a very similar sound quality to the following ‘keer’ calls, so it seems likely to be a Marbled Murrelet throughout. Trying to puzzle these chirps out has made me curious if Marbled Murrelets might respond to River Otters chirping.