Learning New Things

I will admit to not being that great at bird calls. Despite the fact that very often it's a vocalisation which first draws my attention to a bird, what I see with my eye is what normally dominates proceedings. I suspect that many birders operate this way. Which is why nocmig really has me stumbling in the...er...dark. First of all, I am discovering that my mental library of readily-identifiable bird sounds is much smaller than I would like. Secondly, when you are presented with just a vocalisation, and no context to put it in, it can be surprisingly difficult to identify the culprit. For example, when you are out birding and hear a single, clear 'peoo' call, and see that it's coming from a small plover flying overhead, it's dead easy to identify it as one of the Little Ringed variety. A single, clear 'peoo' on your nocmig recording is a different matter. Believe me, I know. What I tentatively identified as LRP was in fact a Turnstone. Comparing the two calls it is quite easy to hear the difference, so perhaps I really must be a bit useless, mucking that one up. What can I say? Still, I wonder if some other birders might be in the same boat as me...?

Anyway, here's another cock-up...

A couple of posts ago I published the original version of this spectrogram, and the recording that went with it...

And I added that I must have completely missed this astonishing Curlew call, because almost certainly I was outside, listening, at the time. I'm going to be honest here, and confess that finding this belter on the night's spectrogram was the main reason I am now very carefully logging any 'out-loud' playing of bird calls while I'm in the garden, naked-nocmigging, because I found it so hard to believe that I didn't hear this. Racked with doubt, I cast my mind back to the previous evening. Had I played some random Xeno Canto recording of Curlew for some reason? Had the microphone picked it up? And was that what I was looking at here? Well, the answer was no to all, but it had me worried. With hindsight, it turns out I was almost certainly not outside, but indoors when this bird went over.

However, the main reason I am revisiting this incident is because it is actually not a Curlew! Be truthful, dear reader. Did you listen to the lovely recording and say to yourself, 'Hmm, Gav has cocked this one up big time. That is so obviously a nice bit of Whimbrel song!'? Because that is indeed what this is - a singing Whimbrel! I am grateful to Chris Batty for pointing that out for me, and doubly gutted that I never actually heard it.

So, certainly I am learning new things regarding bird vocalisations, and my pitiful knowledge of them. Anything else? Yes...

This morning, and again this afternoon, I stood in the garden, sky-watching, for quite a long time. I notched up two new #BWKM0 ticks - Lesser Black-backed Gull and Peregrine - and enjoyed great views of two lingering Red Kites, a few Swifts, House Martins and Swallows. What I didn't see, and would never in a million years expect to, were any Moorhens, Barn Owls, Whimbrel, Ringed Plovers, Stone-curlews or Nightjars. However, I now know that all those are realistic expectations after dark. Admittedly, a couple may be less 'expectation' and more 'hope', but you get the point. Three weeks ago I didn't know that.

Very, very much I am learning new things about what flies over my garden during the course of a 24-hour day. And I am loving that.

I realise that some birders are not interested in getting involved with nocmig because it means buying kit, and investing time and energy which perhaps cannot be spared. To some extent that was me, until the coronavirus lockdown. Plus, because I'm lazy, I didn't fancy the inevitable learning curve. So, 'not interested thanks' I get, one hundred percent. However, with nocmig there also seems to be something else. Am I imagining it, or are some birders a bit scathing about it? Hopefully I am imagining that. Because although nocmig may be a minority pursuit right now, and still in relative infancy, there is surely no doubt that it is opening our eyes to birdy stuff that we had no idea was happening. It's turning what we knew into what we thought we knew. And in my book, that's exciting.

And finally, on a less provocative note, some flight shots from this afternoon's sky-watching...

Buzzard

Red Kite

Swift. This photo gives me hope that if I'm ever jammy enough to find an Alpine Swift, there could in theory be a record shot to prove it,

Red Kite. Overhead, and away...