Just noticed this wonderful thread! I've been obsessed by wood pigeon calls ever since my mum told us they were saying "take two cows, Teddy". Ever since, I've noticed that they usually do a series of three or four "take two cows, Teddy" calls, but the phrases start and end differently to how we humans interpret them: The first in the series misses out the "take", and the last one adds it. So a series of calls goes like this: "two cows, Teddy, Take two cows, Teddy. Take two cows, Teddy. Take two cows, Teddy. Take" So each pattern is really "two cows Teddy take". But because there is such a small gap between "take" and "two" (and a longer gap between "Teddy" and "take"), we see it as starting and ending at the biggest gap. Hope you can understand what I'm trying to say It's extraordinarily hard to explain!
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can