Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 02:59:48 -0000 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Don Burggraf Subject: Re: Lake Roland Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi, all. In response to a question from Eliot Kirshbaum, in a previous message tonight I wrote: >I first heard the bird, I thought at once of a mourning warbler I saw and heard last year at Cromwell Valley. The ascending notes sounded "burry" and rich, with a clear second part to the song. I will review tapes to check Kentucky Warbler, however. The only tapes of Kentucky Warbler I have are from Cornell Labs. I have two sets of recordings of Mourning Warbler, which show considerable variability in the songs. Elliot was right, of course, in pointing to the similarity of songs between the two warblers. However, in my own experience listening to Kentucky Warblers, and in the small sample of taped songs I have, the Kentucky seems to be a single pattern of ascending notes, rather than a two-part call. Does anyone out there know whether the Kentucky Warbler can sing with a two-part call, with clear notes following "burry" ones? (I realize that voice identification is always dangerous business. I heard a story on NPR a few weeks ago about a birder who heard what sounded much like a Black-throated Green Warbler, and when the bird was discovered, it turned out to be a White-throated Sparrow. The bird was found in New York's Central Park two consecutive years singing zay, zee, zur zur zee. The bird was recorded, and its song was played as part of the story. Those who studied the event surmised that the sparrow may have learned the warbler's call on the breeding ground, and the event was written up as the first documented example of a sparrow imitating a warbler's song.) Anyway, despite all the variablilty in the Mourning Warbler's song, I am still leaning in that direction because of the two-part character of the song I heard. Don Burggraf Baltimore _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================