Last blog post I gave a sound recording of a mystery bird in the Pyrenees. I've got some reactions, mostly typical species from the higher mountains. I can imagine, as we live in the Netherlands, that we don't have that much experience with those species, but this species is actually a Dutch breeding species! Agreed, not a common one, but still!
It was the call of a Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe libanotica)! (Libanotica is surprisingly lighter than the nominate!) I'm totally unsure when the sound is given, I thought begging, but the bird was not a juvenile and other recordings (only a few!) were made for example in April, way to early for juveniles! At first I thought that it had to be specific for this subspecies, but it was also recorded in the Netherlands (by Herman van Oosten). So it must be a rather rare call.
As I said: I've spended my holidays in the Spanish Pyrenees. Hiking, landscapes, birds, butterflies, grasshoppers, plants, lots of fun and lots of friends, thé recipy for an amazing holiday. This time I had to choose what to do. You cannot go for a long hike if you want to watch butterflies or record birds, so every day was different. In total I made about 300 (after selection) pictures and 100 sound recordings (also grasshoppers, still working on them..). All of my Dutch observations and recordings are added to the online database waarneming.nl. Foreign observations and recordings are put on the international equivalent observado.org. Untill recently most of the observations of the latter are done by Dutch observers on holidays, by now more and more observers are putting observations in the database! Wonderfull! I've added all of my sound recordings on observado.org as well (http://observado.org/user/sounds/1246) and for 10 species it was the first recording, yay!
The first week we stayed at Benasque, a small village especially crowded in winter. As the first week in a new country is rather overwhelming, we made quite some hikes and it was windy all the time or there was a stream that ruined the recording. So, I did not manage to make a lot of recordings. When I hear a singing Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra curvirostra) I'm always amazed by the power, melody and variety between birds and populations. Here a bird from Spain, no idea of the type..
One of my targets, Citril Finch (Carduelis citrinella) was heard and seen flying frequently, but the calls were very soft and the birds are very shy.. Ridiculous how difficult they were to see and hear.. Still managed to make a short recording of the (sub?)song, it reminded me of the song of Reed Warbler..
In the mountains I'm always amazed by the melodious calls and songs of Alpine Chough's (Pyrrhocorax graculus graculus) given in stunning flight shows! It seems that they fly just for fun and showing of. My friends and I are struggling to climb that mountain and of course an Alpine Chough is challenging us by flying up and down the mountain with ease...
This where the bird recordings of the first week. The second week we spent time in the Sierra de Guarra, a more quiet area with higher numbers of species and individuals, so more recordings comming up! As said before, I also made several recordings of grasshoppers. Still working on them, but I will spend a blog post on them as well later on.
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