Sitka Nature

A trip in mid-November interrupted my recording habit, and it took a while to get back into it. Things seem to be pretty quiet most nights, and I decided to collapse a few of the highlights from the few nights in November I recorded but did not yet post.

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A Chestnut-backed Chickadee and Red-breasted Nuthatch trade calls. This was one of the last times I heard a nuthatch around the house, though I have heard them elsewhere in town, since. Recorded the morning of 11 November.

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After my return, the Bald Eagles seemed to be the first birds to greet the day. Some mornings they are perched in the trees right behind the house. Recorded morning of 29 November.

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The night of the 29-30 November, was a busy one for Marbled Murrelets. There are two clips on this recording, the first one sounds like the bird was quite close, and if I’m interpreting the sound correctly, there’s the smear of an echo with it. The second was from 10 or 15 seconds later, more distant. Perhaps the same bird on a return flight? Recorded at 03:28 am.

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Chestnut-backed Chickadees are reputed to be cheerful even in foul weather. This one didn’t seemed to have its spirits dampened by the chilly November rain.

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Ravens make a wide variety of different calls. On this recording there are three different clips with 4 different types of calls in the foreground (and another in the far background). Perhaps some day I’ll come up with descriptive names for the different ones I record. Recorded morning of 30 November.

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More Raven calls, these from the morning of 1 December. This clip features what I might call the frog croak call as well as the more typical caw.

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.

Thanks to some helpful folks for responding to a help request, I now realize that the otter/mystery calls are Marbled Murrelets. I’m pretty sure that the straight chirping calls are otters, but the other more gull-like calls are murrelets. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it before, I guess I did not expect to have them flying over the house.

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Marbled Murrelets: The first Marbled Murrelet calls I noticed were just before 3am. They continued on sporadically through at last 5am. It’s not really known why Marbled Murrelets fly inland during the night throughout the year, though in the summer they do so to visit their nests.
Download Marbled Murrelet 1
Download Marbled Murrelet 2
Download Marbled Murrelet 3

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Mystery Call: There’s probably not much hope for figuring out this call. The first call is obscured somewhat by a Marbled Murrelet call, and a second call is much fainter.
Mystery Call

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Duck Flyover: I think I’ll try to start paying more attention to the sound of ducks flying in order to see if I can figure out species by the sound of their flight.
Duck Flyover

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Raven Calls: Another Raven vocalization that I’ve not caught on recording previously.
Download Raven Calls

Most of these pictures were taken this afternoon while at Sandy Beach. The Marbled Murrelets were seen while kayaking this morning.
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