Thanks Raimund and Klas for your thoughts - I agree on the strong
somewhat staccato finish to a Blackcap - but its tough, especially as
they are both real skulkers once the leaves come out.
For non-Europeans who wonder over our agony, here are two (admittedly
not great) examples of birds "seen" (ie sure of i.d. when recording)
singing in the last few weeks. The G Warbler had a windy day and the
Blackcap an aircraft intruding; but no filtering, just a cut to
reduce file size between phrases. Drives me crazy at the moment (like
16 vs 24 bit ?), and Blackcaps are much more common where I am than
Garden Warblers.
http://cjhails.googlepages.com/blackcapvsgardenwarbler
And Steve, they are both fairly complex songs so sonagrams are of
limted help. But I like your challenge !
Chris
--- In Steve Pelikan <>
wrote:
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> Friends:
>
> I'd be interested in knowing other examples of species pairs with
songs
> that humans find difficult to distinguish.
>
> In eastern north america the classical examples are Scarlet/Summer
> Tanagers and Pine Warbler/Chipping Sparrow/Wormeating Warbler/Dark-
eyed
> Junco.
>
> I hear enough Tanagers that I can tell them apart but before that I
> found them easy to distinguish as sonograms. And sonograms separate
the
> other birds pretty well too.
>
> What are your other favorite examples? Can you tell them apart
easily
> with sonograms?
>
>
> Steve Pelikan
> Klas Strandberg wrote:
> > At 09:11 2007-05-24, you wrote:
> >> Exactly. Though, there are sometimes individuals who do not sing
such
> >> a pronunced end phrase (which was probably the reason why I
initially
> >> misidentified the bird). In any case one can distinguish the two
> >> species by listening carefully for a longer period of time. The
> >> Blackcap songs are always shorter than those of the Garden
Warbler.
> >
> > No, not always.
> > On top of it, a Blackcap can sing the most peculiar songs and keep
> > clever birders busy for minutes before it reveals itself with some
> > typical sound. I have never heard of any interesting variations
among
> > Garden warblers.
> >
> > Klas.
> >
> >
> >> Raimund
> >>
> >> Klas Strandberg <telinga@> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The "thumb rule" is that the Blackcap ends it's phrase with some
> >>> strong and flute-like tones, while the Garden Warbler can go on
for
> >>> minutes with it's unstructured "blabber".
> >>> There is a very "potent" Blackcap at the Telinga site.
> >>>
> >>> Klas.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> At 01:11 2007-05-24, you wrote:
> >>>> --- In "Raimund Specht"
> >>>> <recordingbird@> wrote:
> >>>>> To illustrate the principle of dithering, I have prepared a
quick
> >>>>> example by using the Black cap recording that I made a few
weeks ago
> >>>>> with my new Fostex FR-2LE (thanks to Rombout de Wijs who
notified me
> >>>>> that is was not a Garden warbler).
> >>>>>
> >>>> I cannot contribute anything to this discussion. But I'd LOVE
to know
> >>>> the "rule of thumb" which helps distinguish Blackcap from
Garden
> >>>> Warbler in such a short cut (or even one a bit longer....)
> >>>>
> >>>> Chris
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> "While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
> >>>> sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via
Bernie
> >> Krause
> >>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Telinga Microphones, Botarbo,
> >>> S-748 96 Tobo, Sweden.
> >>> Phone & fax int + 295 310 01
> >>> email: telinga@
> >>> website: www.telinga.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> "While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
> >> sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via
Bernie Krause
> >>
> >> Yahoo! Groups Links
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Telinga Microphones, Botarbo,
> > S-748 96 Tobo, Sweden.
> > Phone & fax int + 295 310 01
> > email:
> > website: www.telinga.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
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