Recently whilst analyzing audio sensors from the QUT audio project http://www.mquter.qut.edu.au/Sensor/monitoring_samford.aspxat Samford (SE Qld) I came across this call http://www.aviceda.org/audio/ and believe that it is the daytime call of the Australian Owlet-Nightjar. I have created a small site to highlight ‘Mystery-calls’ that we are finding and you can leave remarks and opinions. Listen for the 4 repetitions.
I have also recently found the following publication extremely useful ‘The Sound Approach to Birding’ http://www.soundapproach.co.uk/ by Mark Constantine and recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning about bird-sound (Please note that I have no commercial interest in it.)
Look forward to hearing your comments,
Tom
Perhaps of passing interest re Nightjars.
Some decades ago the U of Q Professor of Zoology had annual student exercises in Lamington N. P. Each ran for several days. As an officer of the Parks Service, I had the pleasure of assisting in a number of them. One activity was a study of the dawn chorus. And initially there was one call that not even the good Professor could identify. Given once only on any morning which of course made identification extremely difficult. Eventually it was found to be an Owlet-nightjar giving a “good-night” (“good-miorning”?) call as it retired into its sleeping hollow. And it was a quite different call to its regular night-time call.
Back in the 1960s, I had a somewhat similar experience. I represented the Dept. of Forestry (then administering N Parks) on an inter-departmental committee investigating some N P proposals on C. York Peninsula. My first trip to that part of the world. At one stage we camped for a few days at the foot of the McIlwraith Range – eastern side towards the southern end. At night there was a pair of birds calling to each other quite frequently. Calls that I’d never heard before. On a couple of nights I tried, without any success, to find one with a spotlight.
Desperate measures were called for. I decided to get up well before dawn and try to follow the sound until the last call, then note as best I could where it came from, and wait for enough daylight to search for it. Turned out to be delightfully easy: they went to the ground for the day, sleeping some 10 or 15 m apart … and having a final little quiet conversation, totally different to their calls during the night, before going to sleep. I waited until there was plenty of light and had no difficulty in find the one whose location I had noted. Obviously a nightjar. And of course easily found in bird-books to be the Large-tailed. Immediately identifiable by anyone who has heard its “chopping” call.
Incidentally, HANZAB gives (among other English names), Axe-bird, Carpenter-bird, Hammer-bird, Joiner-bird, Mallet-bird and Woodcutter. And somewhere long ago, I recall “Betting-bird” being given as yet another name. HANZAB says the “chop” is “usually repeated 3-6 times, sometimes only once, and once as many as 48 times, before pausing for a few seconds before another bout”. Sadly, I cannot now remember where I found the reference to “Betting-bird” – it being claimed that men camped in the bush would bet on how many chops there would be in the next call.
Cheers
Syd Curtis
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First is an Owlet Nightjar as has been saidSecond is a Brown Cuckoo Dove I believe Josh
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Definately an Aus Owlet Nightjar. don’t know that it is a special day call, I think it is a common call at night
David James, Sydney burunglaut07@yahoo.com ==============================
________________________________ Sent: Friday, 28 October 2011 2:47 PM
No idea about the call. So you’d recommend that book, despite the calls in it not being Australian? I had assumed that the benefits to an Australian reader might be far less than to a US(?) reader.
Peter Shute
________________________________________ Sent: Friday, 28 October 2011 8:09 AM
Recently whilst analyzing audio sensors from the QUT audio project http://www.mquter.qut.edu.au/Sensor/monitoring_samford.aspxat Samford (SE Qld) I came across this call http://www.aviceda.org/audio/ and believe that it is the daytime call of the Australian Owlet-Nightjar. I have created a small site to highlight ‘Mystery-calls’ that we are finding and you can leave remarks and opinions. Listen for the 4 repetitions.
I have also recently found the following publication extremely useful ‘The Sound Approach to Birding’ http://www.soundapproach.co.uk/ by Mark Constantine and recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning about bird-sound (Please note that I have no commercial interest in it.)
Look forward to hearing your comments,
Tom
No idea about the call. So you’d recommend that book, despite the calls in it not being Australian? I had assumed that the benefits to an Australian reader might be far less than to a US(?) reader.
Peter Shute
________________________________________ Sent: Friday, 28 October 2011 8:09 AM
Recently whilst analyzing audio sensors from the QUT audio project http://www.mquter.qut.edu.au/Sensor/monitoring_samford.aspxat Samford (SE Qld) I came across this call http://www.aviceda.org/audio/ and believe that it is the daytime call of the Australian Owlet-Nightjar. I have created a small site to highlight ‘Mystery-calls’ that we are finding and you can leave remarks and opinions. Listen for the 4 repetitions.
I have also recently found the following publication extremely useful ‘The Sound Approach to Birding’ http://www.soundapproach.co.uk/ by Mark Constantine and recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning about bird-sound (Please note that I have no commercial interest in it.)
Look forward to hearing your comments,
Tom