3 replies to this topic

[Forester1]

Hi! New to forum, so please excuse any faux pas! I have never seen either of these birds, hence no photos, but have heard them many times (Sorry, no recordings)

1.) In the cool, moist western red cedar forests of Northeast Washington (intermountain region, around 1500 foot elevation, near the Canadian border, summer season, daytime), I often heard a bird that sounded just like someone going rapidly up and down one of those old wax pan flutes we would get as kids at halloween in the sixties, The call was somewhat hollow (echoes from the forest?), and would warble rapidly up-down-up-down-up-down-up (I may have thrown an extra in there, not sure). It only took a second or two, and the final up note was always a definite ending note. The scale was somewhere around three to four notes. I have tried to check calls of thrushes, warblers, wrens. etc without luck. Sound familiar to anyone?

2.) Just recently. Early spring, snows just leaving, Central Idaho (South of Stanley, ID), High elevation (7400 feet) lodgepole pine forest at the eastern foot of the Sawtooth Mountains, near a large meadow. Starting at dusk, and continuing through the night (I also heard them in the wee hours between 3 and 4 AM), In the very tops of the lodegpole pine trees. A series of four or so woops (woop woop woop woop), answered by others around the forest. There appeared to be quite a number of them, very active, most of them seemed to be in the tops of the trees near the meadow edge. I have camped here for years, and don't recall hearing them before, but the area has been hard hit by mountain pine beetle, killing large amounts of the lodgepole pine, so they may be here for the bugs, or congested in green patches that are left, I don't know. Any ideas? Thank you in advance for any ideas!

[Liam]

1 sounds like a warbler. Maybe MacGilivray's Warbler or (out of range) Northern Waterthrush.

[roundywaves]

I would say the first one could be a veery.  I think it sounds like one of those plastic tube whistles that you twirl around and the pitch goes up and down and up and down.  They can be elusive.  It took an entire summer before I saw one and they were singing in the woods near my house.

I don't know about #2.

[Forester1]

Thanks guys. As I listen to the calls of both suggested birds on this site, I can hear elements in both, although both the call recordings here are so coated with apparent noise reduction that they don't even sound natural, so it makes it very hard to tell..... Listening to the calls on other sites, neither sounds quite like what I was hearing, both lack that hollow sound and the up-down-up. On call number 2, I guess that remains a mystery. There certainly were a bunch of them those nights in the mountains, and the locals want to call them snipes, and say they fly straight up from the tree tops in mating ritual, but I haven't found any snipes anywhere that are anything but shore birds, not tree-top dwellers. Maybe it's a local colloqialism. Thanks again!