Returned from the midwest today to find lots of new arrivals in the yard - 
eastern towhee, yellow-billed cuckoo, gray catbird, wood thrush, 
ruby-throated hummingbird, great crested flycatchers, eastern kingbird, 
chimney swift.  Just at dark there was an ovenbird doing some flight 
singing in the woods.  It would sing part of the normal song (but faster), 
throw in a yellowthroat witcheria, a Carolina wren note, and then the first 
note of a whip-poor-will.  I've always wondered how they come to learn 
these other songs. Some make sense - they are related to yellowthroats, 
they can't not hear a Carolina wren all day long, but the whip didn't make 
any sense.  During 6 years here I've never heard a whip and wondered where 
they heard them.  Chuck-wills-widows are fairly regular, but not whips.  As 
I headed back to the house pondering this issue, a WHIP-POOR-WILL burst 
into song from the same part of the woods.  Sat on a stump and exulted in 
the singing for more than a half hour, until he quit.  It's been a couple 
of years since I sat and listened to that music.  Better than 89.5 FM.

Good birding,

Paul

3709 Devonshire Drive
Salisbury, MD 21804
410-572-9950
443-783-1268 (cell)
 


-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.6.1/777 - Release Date: 4/26/2007 3:23 PM