I think I have mentioned, I like checking out birds, but I’m not really good at it. If the birds came up and sit in front of me, I can spot them easily. But most birds tend to hang out in trees. Trees have leaves and branches and things that get in the way, so it’s not always easy to spot them. The again, some days it’s a matter of believing what is right in front of you.
Solving this particular mystery was not a quick process. I have been hearing it for most of the last month. A fairly loud call and it was usually fairly close. I would search, but never spot the bird. At least I thought I wasn’t spotting the bird.
On a couple of occasions, I saw what I thought was a goldfinch, only there was no yellow. Kind of a monochrome, grey version of a goldfinch. It had little white stripes on the wings, similar to the goldfinch, but no colour. And it didn’t sound like a goldfinch, so that couldn’t be the right bird.
This past weekend, I finally saw it singing. I heard it, hunted it down and there it was. Sitting on a branch and loudly calling, in all it’s drab grey and olive coloured glory. But what was it?
Next step was my trusty bird book, only someone else must have been doing some tidying and the book has moved somewhere. After searching longer for the book than it took me to find the bird, I still had not located the book. I then found an alternate book, that gave me an idea.
Step two was to head to Google. There are lots of various animal and birds calls available online, which I find very helpful. If you can narrow down the suspects a bit, then find their calls, you can possibly figure out who or what is making that sound.
That really was what I was after. I have been hearing this thing yelling at me for weeks now. It’s not uncommon. I’ve heard it before. And since we seem to hang out in the same places, I thought it would be nice to at least get to know the neighbours.
The result was I had been hearing an Eastern wood pewee. It’s a bird that is known to sit on a perch and loudly sing it’s song. Pee-a-wee. It’s a small grey and olive coloured flycatcher. Not uncommon. And being a flycatcher, I’m happy to have him in the neighbourhood. And now I finally know what that sound is that has been bugging me for the past few weeks.
But I need to find a better way to see the birds. Maybe a pair of those x-ray specs they used to sell in the back of comic books. I really don’t care about people walking around in their underwear. But I would like to spot birds through the leaves. Maybe that would work.
But I have found the Eastern wood pewee. Now for the warblers. I can hear them up there.
