The Slack-ass Naturalist Chronicles 4: Bird Calls

Well, the husband's decided that watching a double-feature of horrendous Japanese vampire movies is better than watching nothing. I beg to differ, but hey, to each his own. Gives me time to compose a rare blog entry.

So, in an effort to become a passable "bird expert" for work, I've been trying to learn to identify birds by their songs. There are loads of tapes and computer programs out there, and field guides often give a written description of bird songs (yeah, like that's helpful.) It's not easy to learn this stuff...frustratingly, a lot of warblers sound a hell of a lot alike. But it has been interesting.

Birders have come up with some rather hilarious mnemonics to remember calls by. For example, the Barred Owl has a rather shrill call which sounds vaguely like, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?". The Olive-sided Flycatcher has a whistled call that, if you use your imagination, sounds like, "Quick! Three beers!" (That's not to be confused with the Common Nighthawk, which just says "Beer" in a rather nasally tone.) The Common Eider call is written as "oooooOOOOOOooooo," and sounds remarkably like a pleasantly surprised cartoon duck. It cracks me up.

Sometimes, you just make up your own mnemonic devices as you go. For example, to me, the Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow is "that bird that sounds like a door opening on the USS Enterprise". The Black-throated Green Warbler is the "Hockey Night in Canada bird" because its call reminds me of that ubiquitous "DUH DUH duh duh DUH!" organ refrain played during NHL games. And the Leach's Storm Petrel sounds exactly like a mouse making fake motorcycle noises. Seriously, it's too cute. I wish I knew how to link sounds onto this blog thingy. You should do a search for these bird calls if you're bored.

Okay, ass-stupid vampire movies are over, and so is this nerdy little musing. Cheers!