I've tried the bird identification facility on the website, listening to the calls of all the likely birds that visit my garden, but am having no luck. Can someone help me identify this call? I've been hearing it throughout the Spring and Summer, many times a day. In volume and timbre it sounds like a blackbird, but I know blackbirds don't repeat their calls. And it's nothing like the songs of the mistle and song thrush as given on the website.
It's a rapid four-note call, repeated. The pitch is consistent, in the crack between A and A flat on the treble stave, but I will give it in A for convenience. A; B; C sharp; A; repeat A, B, C sharp; A. The first two notes are like up beats, with weight given to the C sharp as if the first beat of the bar; and the C sharp and A are slurred. Someone on another forum I posted to pointed out it is the opening of Frère Jacques - indeed it is, though I hadn't 'heard' that because it's about twice as fast as you would sing Frère Jaques.
I am in a London suburb near Wandsworth Common. I have resident blackbirds and robins, and am visited by great tits and a few blue tits, sparrows, the occasional green finch, a secretive wren, a very exciting drop-by of a woodpecker, and goldfinch - oh and jays in the days when I put out strings of monkey nuts in shells - discontinued because a squirrel chewed the string and took the lot. Starlings in the winter. Wood pigeons and feral pigeons to the extent of being a nuisance. I guess there are thrushes around but they don't alight in our small gardens. My mystery bird seems to sing/call from a vantage point, like the blackbird, but I've never caught sight of it.
Many thanks if you can identify it!
Hi DizzyDodo,
I know absolutely nothing about music but Greenfinches sometimes use a four note call with emphisis on the last note being like a long wheeze! The RSPB one doesn't seem to play the typical wheeezing call for some reason,
Hope this helps,
H
Hi DizzyDodo and welcome to the forum.
If you can get a recording of the song/call we've got a much better chance of identifying it than from a description. Even one made on a mobile phone would be better than nothing.
You can post sound clips on here by using the icon to post photos. We'll tell you how to do it if you get stuck.
The trouble with the calls on the RSPB identifier, worthy as it is, is that it doesn't cover the wide range of vocalisations that birds make.
Good luck.
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Tony
My Flickr Photostream
You could try a site called wildlifegarden.co.uk, there is a wider selection of songs on there
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
Hi DD
Im the same as H on this I can listen to music but I know nothing about the notes etc, I do find that the Blackcap sounds similar to the Blackbird but other then that Im no help. try listening to the sounds on the RSPB link below.
www.rspb.org.uk/.../index.aspx
Shane
Regards Shane
My Photos in Flickr.
Xeno cato is the best site for calls and songs , but you need to have an idea of what the bird is. As suggested above record the sound and post it here, even a low quality recording from a mobile phone would be ok.
It's both what you do and the way that you do it!
You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren. William Henry Hudson (1841 - 1922)
TeeJay, thanks for your suggestion. My phone isn't sophisticated enough to record sound, but I've recorded a .wav file of me whistling the call. It's a pretty good likeness, though the actual bird is marginally stronger. Not sure which icon you mean for posting photos - I tried the option to 'insert image' but it doesn't like that - understandably. I shall try 'attach file'. Oh dear, that doesn't work either. I can upload the file but then it tells me there's a maximum attachment file size of 64kB, and my file is 1.68MB. Maybe .wav files are always big, but I don't think I can record to anything else. (I'm using a webcam microphone and my All2Wav program seems happy to take from that).
I do recall that starlings are very good at mimicing. But there haven't been starlings around since the winter, and you'd expect several, not just one. And anyway, what is it mimicing?
BTW, how do you post to the forum without using one of the topic categories (I used Hello)? Other people's posts don't seem to be in specific categories.
Cheers
I'm afraid we are having terrible problems with the Forum today and there don't seem to be any IT guys around to fix it. Pages are taking forever to load and I can't upload any photos. I think your WAV file should be small enough to load and the insert image icon is the one to use but at the moment nothing is working properly. Hang on to it and try again when the system has been fixed.
You can't post without it being under one of the categories. If you go to the Wildlife or the Chat headings on the main menu bar you will see the main forum categories and just choose the most appropriate. For example under Wildlife you will see Ask a question. That's probably where you should have posted this but don't worry about it we're all pretty confused since this "Improved Forum" was introduced.
Just a thought as you have been hearing this for a long time, I wonder if it is a cage bird? A Mynah Bird mimics other sounds.........
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16304936@N06/
http://suffolk.activeboard.com/f528553/birds-of-suffolk/
It's not a chaffinch is it they have a repetetive song? Been going through the RSPB songs and its the nearest I can come up with.