Well, it's February here in southern Illinois, and I have a great variety of birds at my feeders. Northern cardinals, tufted titmice (or is it titmouses? LOL), and the occasional woodpecker, lots of sparrows, finches of all types, and ah—the rarest of sparrows - every once in a while I get a Eurasian tree sparrow with it's black ear patch on its white cheek, over from St. Louis, Missouri, 100 miles away! Anyway, I'm used to all their calls, but for the past two afternoons, I've heard a call I didn't recognize. It was a mournful? call—and just two notes. Well, thanks to your website, I now know that it's one of those little black capped chickadees... calling out to his mate. How sweet! BUT, and there's always a but! The call is MUCH lower in pitch than any of the recordings I can find out there. Begs the question: do their voices change in pitch, perhaps as they age? I donno. But it's funny to listen to the same bird and find major variations, to pitch and song sometimes! For example, my Carolina wrens have a VERY different "teakettle" call here in Illinois than they do in recordings from other parts of the country! The notes go different ways! Almost like they speak a dialect, or something! That wouldn't surprise me, since humans do that all the time. I wonder if the birds can identify "foreigners" that way! Love those rascals, even if they do eat me out of house and home!
Well, it's February here in southern Illinois, and I have a great variety of birds at my feeders. Northern cardinals, tufted titmice (or is it titmouses? LOL), and the occasional woodpecker, lots of sparrows, finches of all types, and ah—the rarest of sparrows - every once in a while I get a Eurasian tree sparrow with it's black ear patch on its white cheek, over from St. Louis, Missouri, 100 miles away! Anyway, I'm used to all their calls, but for the past two afternoons, I've heard a call I didn't recognize. It was a mournful? call—and just two notes. Well, thanks to your website, I now know that it's one of those little black capped chickadees... calling out to his mate. How sweet! BUT, and there's always a but! The call is MUCH lower in pitch than any of the recordings I can find out there. Begs the question: do their voices change in pitch, perhaps as they age? I donno. But it's funny to listen to the same bird and find major variations, to pitch and song sometimes! For example, my Carolina wrens have a VERY different "teakettle" call here in Illinois than they do in recordings from other parts of the country! The notes go different ways! Almost like they speak a dialect, or something! That wouldn't surprise me, since humans do that all the time. I wonder if the birds can identify "foreigners" that way! Love those rascals, even if they do eat me out of house and home!