I was hearing something the other day and wondering if it was a young Channel-bill calling. (It wasn’t.) It got me to thinking, do they have a characteristic begging call? Does it vary depending on host? I checked Morcombe and Pizzey and neither have a recording of the begging. I also visited Graeme Chapman’s wonderful collection of sounds and pictures. He recently posted a link to his (fantastic) Channel-bill recordings: http://www.graemechapman.com.au/library/sounds.php?c=88&p=125 …but also no begging. Do they even make such a call? As many times as I’ve seen these birds calling and flying around, I haven’t ever seen one on the nest…I’ve see Koel, but not their big cousins. Speaking of recordings, I was just reminded today that Graeme’s collection is very much worth visiting regularly. He’s got very good recordings of hundreds of Australian birds. It’s easy for us to take such recordings for granted, but they must represent a huge, huge effort…and not many people seem to be making good recordings. I’ve tried with some borrowed gear and, honestly, it’s tough. Thinking back, I can remember seeing people making recordings in the field two or three times, anywhere, ever. I couldn’t count the number of people I’ve seen with big lenses. (One of the two people I remember clearly doing recordings was Aussie Susan Myers in Borneo working on her then upcoming field guide. I had no idea who she was but her name was so familiar. Through gritted teeth she said “Desperate Housewives”. ) Anyway, speaking of begging calls, off the top of my head, I can bring to mind the sound of young Magpies and plenty of Cockatoo species. The pleading and then feeding sounds of Cockatoo young sound much more similar across species to me than the adults. The adults are readily distinguishable but the young, not so much…for me. I’m in far southern NSW so I don’t have the same mix of species as some of the rest of you. =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au http://birding-aus.org ===============================
It is audible for some distance:-) =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
Thanks Carl, that’s fantastic. Here’s the full link for folks: http://www.xeno-canto.org/64143 I’m going to keep my ears out for this sort of sound this year and hope to hear it. On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Carl Clifford < carlsclifford@gmail.com>wrote: =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
David, CBC chicks do have a begging call, it is a non-stop “waak”. I had one in a Currawong nest across the river from my camp at Woko NP a few years back. They are very persistant. There is a call of a CBC chick begging on Xeno-Canto, file number XC64143. Cheers, Carl Clifford =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================