Hi Peter
Thanks for the recordings. It's very interesting.
All three are calls that I'm familiar with from our local whipbirds here in our
garden in SE Qld.
But, I'm not sure if you were indicating that the same males are making
different calls at different times of day, or that each of the recorded calls
belongs exclusively to, and identifies, a different male.
Or possibly it's more complicated than that!
Can you separate the males from each other by sight, as well as by call?
All the best
Bill Jolly
> Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 23:21:22 +1000
> From:
> To:
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] whip birds
>
> Gday,
> I have been absent from this list for sometime now but I have some
> observations on whip birds which might be useful. They provoke several
> questions on my part but that will come a little later.
>
> Having lived at my Wyoming NSW abode for over 30 years the sound of whip
> birds was never far away although I admit that, as pretty much a non
> bird watcher, I never payed much attention to exactly when the birds
> were present. There is a small area of natural bushland across the road.
> In 2005 the council built a high lintel wall opposite my place to
> protect the old excavated wall from collapse. This had some impact on
> the geography and the loose wildlife corridor adjoining Berrys Head and
> Narara Ck.
>
> However it was a little before Xmas 08 that our resident "lot" of whip
> birds moved in. I didn't pay much attention at first but as time went by
> I realised that the male calls were different at different times of the
> day, so I began recording them. At first I thought we had two males that
> were attracted to a pile of blue tarp in my next door's car port as
> their calls were quite different.
> On investigation it turned out that the males were instead attracted to
> a double sided mirror. The male would give his "whip" call and then race
> around to the other side only to be confronted by his own image again.
> Must have been very confusing for them.
> I finally removed the mirror this afternoon as I have enough recordings
> and I hope next door's cat doesn't have enough bird in its tummy. ;-)
> (last moment realisation)
>
> So over the past weeks I've become much more diligent in observing and
> recording, and I would be 95% sure that we now have three distinct
> monogamous pairs of whip birds visiting our garden.
> I can clearly distinguish the male "whip" call from the female response
> and can give evidence at:
>
> http://www.adderley.net.au/pterazoo/birds/whipbirds/
>
> Please listen to these calls very carefully as you will hear three
> distinctly different male calls accompanied by three distinctive female
> answers.
> Over several days' observation it seems that the pairs are, in fact,
> monogamous.
>
> One question remains: isn't it a little late in the season for whip
> birds to be courting? The bird books seem to indicate that courting
> finishes around Xmas.
>
> Cheers,
> Peter Adderley
>
>
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