Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!acsu.buffalo.edu
From: dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: television bird lists
Message-ID: <34565@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 2 Sep 90 17:31:07 GMT
References: <34489@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <1167@cluster.cs.su.oz>
Sender: news@acsu.Buffalo.EDU
Organization: SUNY Buffalo
Lines: 46
Nntp-Posting-Host: autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu

In article <1167@cluster.cs.su.oz> andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor) writes:
>In article <34489@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu
>(David Mark) writes:
>>Anyone else out there keep a list of bird species identified (seen or heard)
>>on television? 
>
>I have serious reservations about a TV-lister's sanity ...

   Thanks.

>                                                   ... but you can make
>important observations! A Sydney birder known for "good ears" was watching
>the nightly news. In a piece on the discovery of a murder victim in a
>swamp, he heard in the background what he was sure was a Mangrove warbler
>call (do you list birds only heard on TV?, what about radio?). He called the
>TV station and after much explanation found out roughly where the piece
>was filmed. A birder local to the area was phoned and dispatched to the site.
>The result - an extension of several hundred kms to the Mangrove Warbler's
>range.
>
>Andrew

But one has to be careful to apply that technique only in news and sports,
and not in drama.  I remember back in the '60's, in an episode of "Project
UFO" with a story set in Maine (northeastern USA), hearing a Wrentit
(a coastal scrub bird never recorded in any US state except California and
Oregon) singing in the background.  And then there was the Eastern Screech
Owl singing in the opening scene of "E.T." which was set in California.

> do you list birds only heard on TV?, what about radio?

I do include birds only heard on TV, on my TV list.  Have picked up a few
in the background on telecasts of golf tournaments, etc.

I do not (for obvious reasons) include birds heard on the radio as part
of my television list, not birds seeen or heard in movies seen in theatres
or on aircraft.  And I don't have a radio list or a movie list.  Yet.


>                        A Sydney birder known for "good ears" ...

Any Sydney birders known for "good eyes"?  Well, come to think of
it, perhaps all Australian birders are known for "G'day"s!    :-)

David Mark
dmark@sun.acsu.buffalo.edu