S6E10 - Nocturnal Birding (Eastern Whip-poor-will)

[00:00:00] At the end of the very first episode of the season, I mentioned we'd be coming back to the

[00:00:05] nocturnal portion of that hike. And well, here we are.

[00:00:09] This will be Lesburt's song, more talk about the Eastern Whipper Will and Sitting in the

[00:00:14] Quiet. I'll make reference to some bat sounds but I couldn't quite make them audible

[00:00:20] in the recording? Stick around though to the end for a surprise song, right at the conclusion

[00:00:25] of my hike.

[00:00:55] My name is Rob and this is Songbirding.

[00:01:25] So much like Johnson Harbor where I was last doing a trip whereas recording. No people

[00:01:53] back here really. In fact the road I came in on and then the road off of that road, no

[00:02:03] vehicles. There's no one parked at the trailhead so it wouldn't expect to come across any

[00:02:10] people. So I'd say if you do live somewhere where you can reach Eligaini easily and you

[00:02:26] like places where you don't find any people, my first find so far has proven to be quiet

[00:02:38] and unpopulated. So imagine as long as you don't go to the places that all the signs

[00:02:50] point to, to say you must go here if you're hiking then you could probably find a quiet

[00:02:59] place here to go hiking if that's what you enjoy.

[00:03:06] I've come to a turnaround spot. It seems to have an old

[00:03:35] cast well, a water well can't tell. Probably cast. It's got a number and everything. Yeah it

[00:03:46] looks like a cast well. Fireflies. So the road is turning into trail here. I'm starting

[00:03:59] to see fireflies more prominently. I'm going to walk for a minute into here but not much

[00:04:10] more than that because it's dark. There we go, Scarlet Tanager. I hope that can be

[00:04:29] picked up by the recorder but we're going to have to stop and be very quiet I think for a bit

[00:04:33] to hear that.

[00:05:03] So Scarlet Tanager didn't focalize more in a couple times. Maybe we'll catch that

[00:05:22] a little louder tomorrow. I think I'm going to treat this as a turnaround point for me.

[00:06:22] Yeah I'll come back here in the morning. Really curious.

[00:06:51] What this place sounds like. You know Don Corus if I can get here early enough. It's

[00:07:07] unfortunately my hike in was all downhill. So I've got not pill climbed for me. But let's see.

[00:07:24] Oh, another hermit thrush.

[00:07:54] It's going to make four now. Let's go towards that.

[00:08:54] So that's the call of the hermit thrush. Calls tend to be more about interaction with other birds and predators.

[00:09:17] Whereas songs tend to be more about both attracting a mate and establishing territory and maintaining territory.

[00:09:44] We've got quite a bit of uphill in the dark to go here.

[00:10:14] Oh, I've got a bat.

[00:10:44] I've got a little bit of a hill.

[00:11:05] two bats now.

[00:11:11] What I'm hoping is I hear some squeaks from them

[00:11:15] because what I can do is take those recordings

[00:11:21] transpose them down to a human audible realm so you can all hear what they actually sound like

[00:11:28] in the upper frequencies. It's going to sit here for a minute and record

[00:11:33] and see if there's any super high pitch sounds that come from that

[00:11:37] that even I can't hear but they'll be visible in the recording for me later so

[00:11:43] let's see.

[00:11:54] Or we'll get a whipper will.

[00:12:02] well isn't that nifty and very well timed.

[00:12:33] I think I'm hearing something from the bats

[00:12:40] so I might still transpose that down. That meanwhile, let's listen to the whipper will.

[00:13:02] so

[00:13:20] so whipper wills are

[00:13:24] they're type of species referred to as goat suckers do the simul myths but

[00:13:33] very odd looking birds very very well camouflaged.

[00:13:37] You just cannot find them during the day very easily because it's blended into everything

[00:13:43] they'll blend into a branch. They blend into the ground where they lay their eggs

[00:13:50] they look kind of like what you would think an alien bird looked like

[00:13:54] one was another distant one replying

[00:14:02] but they do fly around like the common night hawks do and they're related to common night hawks

[00:14:16] the insectivores

[00:14:20] very fast and very graceful inflate

[00:14:23] but when they're on territory like this, they do their telltale whipper will song

[00:14:41] and there's still several bats flying around here.

[00:14:49] I'm willing to bet they are making some very high frequency sounds that

[00:14:53] I can transpose down so that you can hear that

[00:15:12] it's kind of hoping maybe I'd hear an owl or two but a whip royals actually even better

[00:15:20] because one can hear an owl anytime of the year if it's you know great horned Bart El

[00:15:27] they will vocalize throughout the year more so in breeding time but

[00:15:31] I'm pretty sure you can get them through at the year of vocalizing

[00:15:35] but a whipper will they're only here for a while

[00:15:41] and we're starting to reach the time where they

[00:15:44] begin to lessen the amount of song per night

[00:15:55] it may be this specific bird is done for the night or it may have flown off to where that

[00:16:00] other one is vocalizing from or maybe isn't that other one

[00:16:04] so I'll wait about a minute and

[00:16:12] potentially record these bats that if there's nothing more we'll continue on

[00:16:16] so during my walk up that hill I did here it distant green horn out but it's so

[00:16:36] distant and quiet there's no way this microphone picked that up while I'm walking

[00:16:41] I've kind of began to learn the limits of the recorder over the years now

[00:16:48] and it used to be that if I could hear the microphone would catch it

[00:16:55] but I'm finding now that I'm discovering some of these

[00:17:00] places of quietude where there's very low anthropogenic sound begin to hit the noise floor

[00:17:08] of the microphone where it's so quiet here for example there's not all this anthropogenic noise

[00:17:16] covering up other sounds

[00:17:26] meaning now there are some things that are audible to my ears but not to the microphone

[00:17:37] so now have to be careful about that and not rely on the quietest things being actually audible

[00:17:48] for the recording

[00:17:55] he is getting nice and cool in here

[00:19:07] so we've got more whipper whales maybe you know what I think that one's vocalizing around where

[00:19:20] I have my recorder that was recording with rush

[00:19:29] and that's pretty neat I don't know if that one just started or if it was the other one I was hearing

[00:19:36] before

[00:20:06] If you can imagine this is a fair bit of

[00:20:36] after-dusk now. Fairly dark forest. Still some light in this guy certainly.

[00:20:46] Can it be covers most of it? A little bit of a cool breeze.

[00:20:59] Definitely a little bit of humidity to the air though. And there's whipper will singing.

[00:21:16] This is the only the second time I've gotten whipper wills while out hiking.

[00:21:25] That was roughly an hour of hiking. And pretty productive for anything.

[00:21:55] I just need to make sure to update my eager list at the end to have the whipper wills.

[00:22:06] Great hordeau. And that glad sort of green worbler that I heard right after we did the update to the list.

[00:23:05] That's a perfect wrap up.

[00:23:25] Is there coyotes? Also known as the song dogs.

[00:23:55] That was a nice chorus. So it's the eastern coyotes, the species. Not dangerous to humans usually.

[00:24:10] And because it is usually I'm glad this is at the end of my hike and not in the middle.

[00:24:21] Although I really don't know if any cases outside of one where someone was attacked by coyotes.

[00:24:31] And that was considered a very unusual event. Still happy to hear them on the way out.

[00:24:49] That's a really fascinating song. In fact, it's a chorus. Not just a song.

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[00:25:28] Songbirding, the Allegheny National Forest is a songbirding studios production and was recorded, engineered, narrated and created by me, Rob Porter.

[00:25:38] With cover art and logo designed by Lauren Hilton and Creative Commons music from Axel Tree.

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[00:26:18] Songbirding, the Allegheny National Forest is a songbirding studio.

[00:26:38] Songbirding, the Allegheny National Forest is a songbirding studio.

[00:26:58] Songbirding, the Allegheny National Forest is a songbirding studio.

[00:27:18] Songbirding, the Allegheny National Forest is a songbirding studio.