Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ub!acsu.buffalo.edu
From: dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Contact Notes of Winter Birds in Seattle
Message-ID: <47471@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 25 Nov 90 17:14:52 GMT
References: <11634@milton.u.washington.edu>
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In article <11634@milton.u.washington.edu> jespah@milton.u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt) writes:
>
>Hi, everyone. ...                           ...  ... I'm having trouble 
>with those damn little mixed flocks.  I've got no problem if they would 
>only sing their little songs or call their little calls, but when they 
>just sit up there going "ee ee ee" I have an awful hard time telling apart
>golden-crowned kinglets, ruby-crowned kinglets, black-capped chickadees,
>and chestnut-backed chickadees.  I seem to be able to hear slight differences
>in the peeps, but I don't know if that's just individual variation or if
>there are really reliable differences among the species.  Does anyone have
>any suggestions?  

The "ee ee ee" is Golden-crowned Kinglets.  The chickadees do little
'twit' and so on notes, and occasionally full "chick-a-dee" calls.  I
don't remember if one can readily tell the contact calls of CBC and BCC
apart, although their "chick-a-dee" calls are "easy when you know how.

>.... and there's another bird that goes "eee     eee"  with a relatively
>long pause.  Does that ring any bells for anyone?      

That is Brown Creeper.


>
>And while I have your undivided attention :-), I would like to confirm
>differences in the "chick-a-dees".  Seems that the black-cappeds, the ones
>I am most familiar with, have a full-bodied, rather deep "chick-a-dee-dee-
>dee-dee" usually with several throaty dee's.  The chestnut-backed (the ones
>I am unfamiliar with since I never saw them back east) seem to be have 
>higher voices and have a shorter call, just "chick-a-dee" with one dee, and
>the dee is sort of buzzy.  Have I got that right?

Just the opposite in my recollection.  Chestnut-backs' "chick-a-dee" calls
are much deeper and "huskier" [especially on the UW campus  :-)]  
Chestnut-backs also more often do a "dee-dee-dee" without the leading "chick-a"
(in my recollection-- I live in Buffalo now, but grew up in Vancouver, BC).

David Mark
dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu