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Re: Winter song



I was visiting friends in California and went to hike through one of the coast redwood groves nearby. As I was walking through the forest, I heard a winter wren singing. I tracked down the bird and finally found it.

Picture this:

Here was this tiniest of wrens, pumping up and down, pouring forth with song, perched atop a redwood stump from a tree that had been at least 8 feet in diameter!

Norm

At 10:26 AM 11/13/2002 -0500, you wrote:
I went for a walk this morning to watch the sunrise and listen to the birds
wake up.  Opening the door I was greeted with an amazing song from the dark,
one I didn't recognize.  It sounded like the song of a finch, repeating and
going on and on like so many finches seem to.  I made my way toward the
trees where the songs were coming from and was able to make out the tiniest
silhouette of the singing bird perched about 15 feet up.  I couldn't make
out many characteristics of the bird and figured it was either a Kinglet,
Junco, or Winter Wren from it's size, or maybe a Warbler I didn't know.  As
soon as light peeked over the horizon the songs stopped and the little guy
disappeared.

This is where I have to give thanks to technology.  I went home and put in
the Stokes bird call CD set to check out the 3 main suspects.  Found out it
was the Winter Wren.  I had no idea they sang such beautiful songs, I'm only
used to hearing their constant low muttering when following them on the
ground through thickets.

A wonderful way to start the day.

Craig Armstrong / Chapel Hill

*********************************************************** Norman Budnitz, nbudnitz@duke.edu 919-684-3592 (day), 919-383-0553 (eve), 919-660-7293 (fax)

(work) Biology Dept, Duke Univ, Box 90338, Durham NC 27708
(home) 4115 Garrett Drive, Durham NC 27705

PROGRESS: the victory of laughter over dogma.
(Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas)