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From: jespah@milton.u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Contact Notes of Winter Birds in Seattle
Message-ID: <11678@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 90 06:34:32 GMT
Distribution: rec.birds
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 26

From: dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark)
*>[this is me, Kathleen]
*>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).

Whoa, now I *am* confused.  I thought I had this right because:
1) the throaty "chick-a-dee" call, including the "dee-dee-dee" that is   
sometimes given without the introductory "chick-a", sounds *just* like 
the black-capped chickadees in Maine that I know.  
2) I have a couple tapes of birds of the northwest, and the "chick-a-dees"
on those tapes are as I described above.

Could it be that we are simply describing the same thing differently?   Or
are the tapes wrong, and Seattle CBC's sound like Maine BCC's?

Jespah