canberrabirds

Bird calls

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Subject: Bird calls
From: "Roy Harvey" <>
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 14:51:46 +1100

I spent about 4 hours kayaking around Burley Griffin bird watching this morning: several Australian Grebe, a pair of Dollar Birds, a cackle of Noisy Friars, Eastern Swamphens with three very small self-propelled young, several groups of Yellow Tailed Blacks, a flight of 25-30 black cormorants (but they were too far away for me to get a good look), and the usual darters, Silver Gulls etc (No Bitterns!)

 

There were two sets of bird calls that I’d like people’s suggestions as to what they could be.

 

I was near a clump of reeds near the Acacia Inlet sites where the Little Bittern has been seen.

I heard this odd call coming from a clump of reeds over a period of 10 minutes. The call consisted of a short, melodious whistle that went up in pitch then down (a continuous call, not separate notes like a Cuckoo)  followed immediately by an insect like rasping noise.  The whistle call lasted about 1-2 second, and the insect noise for a bit longer. I saw several Eastern Swamphen in the area, but it didn’t sound like any of the calls I had associate with them.

 

The other call consisted of a click sound followed by two (mournful) notes each of the same constant pitch. This was repeated over and over, with an occasional break. On one occasion there was a single call, and on another the pitch of the two notes was a bit higher than the usual call. This was one of the few stretches of reed where I I didn’t see any Clamorous Reed warblers (but it didn’t sound like any of their calls).
Any suggestions on what birds these could be?

 

Roy


 

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