Grey Partridge (Perdix perdix) identified by sound

Carrying a recorder, an Olympus LS-10, has made a great difference to me in being able to identify birds. On my walks I would hear something really interesting, tell myself to remember it, but was never able to do so.

On my recent trip to Northern Germany I was walking on a path bordering a field out in the country, a large field with short stubby grass which had recently been cut. As I was concentrating on listening to the melodius fluting song of a Common Blackbird (turdus merula) in a nearby bush I became aware of another sound, a series of eery low pitched scratchy sounds just beyond the edge of the field, it seemed, but the exact distance was hard to pin-point In the increasing darkness I gradually made out the dark silhouette of a game bird crouching near a clump of grass in the middle distance, from which the sounds seemed to be coming. I recorded a section and identified it as a grey partridge (link to audio file)

Spectrogram & waveform using Raven Lite 1.0:







Although I grew up in Germany in the 50's and early 60's I had never heard this sound before nor had I seen grey partridges which were supposed to have been quite abundant, although less so today because of intensive cultivation and loss of habitat. It was introduced to North America where it is also known as "Hungarian Partridge". It was extensive hunted in the UK and is currently on the Red List there.

Photography

I am going on a seabirding trip out of Newburyport tomorrow sponsored by the Mass Audubon Joppa Flats Education Center. Getting the right settings for my camera is going to be crucial; I usually rely on the histogram on the LCD screen of my camera to check for right exposure and avoid clipping on each side, that is areas of the image that are underexposed and others that are overexposed. On a bright sunny day however the screen is almost impossible to see, even when shading it with my hand. This problem can cause great disappointment when getting home from a trip and finding that the majority of the photos have to go into the trash. I posed the question on a forum of the Nikonian website and was pointed to a gadget called Hoodman HoodLoupe 3.0 which you hold over the screen and allows you to get a clear view of your image. There is a nice video of it on Youtube. At $80 it's a bit too pricey for me though. Instead I fashioned a toilet paper tube, painting it ink black on the inside and wrapping it in electrician's tape on the outside. The soft edge of the tape on the screen blocks out whatever light would seep in under the cardboard. Pressing it against the screen and moving around gives a nice clear picture. This should do just fine for this trip.

The weather is going to be nice, I think, and I hope to get lots of pictures to post on the site here.

P.S. 7/7/09 The idea with the blackened toilet paper tube turned out to be poppycock. I stood in the shade for most of the trip and all I had to do was shade the screen with my hand to see the histogram.

Henslow's Sparrow

After reading all the reports MASSBIRD I too traveled to the Montague area to see the Henslow's Sparrow. He was perched on a green stalk in the back of a tall grass meadow singing. The stalk also seemed to be a favorite perch for three male bobolinks. When they appeared he would drop down in the grass; and at one point he reappeared about 75 feet to the left on a similar group of green grass. When the bobolinks moved on he moved back to his original spot. While I was there much to my chagrin he stayed in the back of the field and was pretty much out of reach of my camera. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can barely make him out on the bent bright green stalk in the center back.




Another birder with a scope was kind enough to let me take a look. What a beautiful little bird! I was amazed at the brightness and clarity of the image. I'd been holding off on getting a scope but this made me change my mind, although this particular one, a Swarovski, would out of my price range right now. I did manage to get an 11 sec recording of the song, not great quality but good enough, I think, to give an impression. The spectrogram helps in visualizing the song.



Mark Fairbrother posted the first report on June 27. It seems a miracle that he discovered him, particularly since the song is not very loud. There have been very few recorded observations and, although historically a breeder in Massachusetts, he is now listed as an endangered species in the state. Unfortunately the chances of him finding a mate are incalculably small.