LEGO is the giveaway.
Yeah, so I was whiling away the 2 o'clock hour this hazy, partly cloudy Wed. afternoon, Solstice Day, June 21, 2023, just south of the noisy intersection of 30th & Valmont when I heard quite a commotion in a tall shade tree along 30th. Hairy woodpecker, then house sparrow, then northern flicker, then American goldfinch, then house wren, then western wood-pewee, then lazuli bunting, then plumbeous vireo, and, through it all, a lesser goldfinch.
I fumbled around my backpack for my cell phone, found it, pressed the red button, and got audio:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/587098881
Those are the utterances of a single lesser goldfinch! Mockingbirds and starlings get all the glory for their powers of mimicry (and, to be sure, those two are indeed amazing mimics), but the lesser goldfinch is an astounding mimic, too. Seems like that goldfinch had spent some time in the foothills. That's why I'm calling the Passerina bunting flight call a lazuli bunting; but it's at least as good a match for the flight call of a blue grosbeak. And I'm applying the same probabilistic reasoning to the plumbeous vireo; but after my recent experiences with a territorial Cassin vireo up there, who knows!
In any event, it's amazing what we're learning by simply pressing the red button on our phones. Or, as Nathan Pieplow put it recently:
-- Yeah, so I was whiling away the 2 o'clock hour this hazy, partly cloudy Wed. afternoon, Solstice Day, June 21, 2023, just south of the noisy intersection of 30th & Valmont when I heard quite a commotion in a tall shade tree along 30th. Hairy woodpecker, then house sparrow, then northern flicker, then American goldfinch, then house wren, then western wood-pewee, then lazuli bunting, then plumbeous vireo, and, through it all, a lesser goldfinch.
I fumbled around my backpack for my cell phone, found it, pressed the red button, and got audio:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/587098881
Those are the utterances of a single lesser goldfinch! Mockingbirds and starlings get all the glory for their powers of mimicry (and, to be sure, those two are indeed amazing mimics), but the lesser goldfinch is an astounding mimic, too. Seems like that goldfinch had spent some time in the foothills. That's why I'm calling the Passerina bunting flight call a lazuli bunting; but it's at least as good a match for the flight call of a blue grosbeak. And I'm applying the same probabilistic reasoning to the plumbeous vireo; but after my recent experiences with a territorial Cassin vireo up there, who knows!
In any event, it's amazing what we're learning by simply pressing the red button on our phones. Or, as Nathan Pieplow put it recently:
"What does that mean, exactly? Heck if I know. But I do think it's another great reason why EVERY birder's first instinct upon hearing [birds]—anywhere, anytime—should be to pull out the phone and hit record."
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder Co.
Lafayette, Boulder Co.
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