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On 5/29/2011 1:09 PM, Larry Bogan wrote:
> Yesterday, while at the Kings County Airport (Waterville), I heard a
> killdeer and looked for it on the roof of a hanger, only to find a
> starling.
* This is a fascinating subject, which, like war, is 99% broken glass
and 1% data. I've appended recent records of listening for Starling
mimicry of frog calls, motivated by an attempt to understand
extra-limital records of calling frogs. These records present some
reflections on how Starlings mimic, especially that they often give only
one or two repetitions of a call.
fred schueler
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
now in the field on the Thirty Years Later Expedition -
http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/thirty/thirtyintro.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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4 April 2005: Canada: Ontario: Grenville County: Oxford-on-Rideau:
Bishops Mills General Store. (100m ard homesite), 31B/13, 44.87282N
75.70097W TIME: 1740. AIR TEMP: 3, light rain, windy. OBSERVER:
Frederick W. Schueler. 2005/030/b, Sturnus vulgaris (Starling) (Bird).
1/common call, heard, seen. mimicked Pseudacris crucifer (Spring Peeper)
in 1 series of clear calls among the ordinary broken-glass Starling
song. In the top of a tree behind the Store.
Starlings are under-rated as mimics because they so often mimic a sound
only once, and then go back to broken glass. In listening for
before-the-frogs mimicry of Peepers and Treefrogs, I've had to train
myself to react to and record a single instance. Usually you expect a
call to be repeated, and only 'really hear' the second or third
instance. In this case the Starling was starling along, and then gave
5-6 pretty good Peeper peeps, and then resumed its normal song. If I'd
been in my usual "did I really hear that" mode I'd have listened for a
repetition, not heard it, and gone on with unloading the car.
5 April 2008: Canada: Ontario: Grenville County: Bishops Mills:S
side(Schuelers). (100m ard homesite), 44.87156N 75.70095W TIME: 1349.
AIR TEMP: 8.5, sunny, calm. HABITAT: rural village, shallow soil
limestone plain. OBSERVER: Frederick W. Schueler. FWS08Apr051349/a,
Sturnus vulgaris (Starling) (Bird). 1/common call, heard. mimicked
emerging Pseudacris crucifer in 4 series of calls among the ordinary
broken-glass Starling song. Not actually seen while singing. These were
the scratchy sort of calls given by Peepers before they've really gotten
into calling, not the clear calls from a full chorus. There's about
20-25 cm of heavy wet snow on the ground.
25 April 2009: Canada: Ontario: Grenville County: Bishops Mills:S
side(Pipers House Garden). (30m garden), 44.87147N 75.70045W TIME:
1213-1216. AIR TEMP: 26, cloudy, windy. HABITAT: untilled
raised(heaped)garden bed, rural village, shallow soil limestone plain.
OBSERVER: Frederick W. Schueler. FWS09Apr251213/c, Sturnus vulgaris
(Starling) (Bird). 1/common call, heard. mimicking Snipe ground call -
but only once.
18 March 2010: (at home) TIME: 1250. AIR TEMP: 15 ca, sunny, calm.
HABITAT: rural village, shallow soil limestone plain. OBSERVER:
Frederick W. Schueler. 2010/023/b, Sturnus vulgaris (Starling) (Bird).
1/several call, heard. single Hyla versicolor call in course of singing.
This was a strikingly clear Hyla versicolor (Tetraploid Gray Treefrog)
call, but it was also very clearly not repeated -- this is
characteristic of Starling mimicry.
31 March 2010: Canada: Ontario: Grenville County: Bishops Mills:S
side(Schuelers Transparent tree). (25m waypoint), 44.87156N 75.70059W
TIME: 1600-1822. AIR TEMP: 16, sunny, breezy. HABITAT: grassy/shaded
backyard in rural village on shallow-soil limestone plain. OBSERVER:
Aleta Karstad Schueler. 2010/033/gb, Sturnus vulgaris (Starling) (Bird).
1/common call, heard. 4 Hyla versicolor mimicked calls in a series.
17 March 2011: (at home) TIME: 1235. AIR TEMP: 8.5, sunny, breezy.
HABITAT: rural village, shallow soil limestone plain. OBSERVER:
Frederick W. Schueler. FWS11Mar171235/a, Sturnus vulgaris (Starling)
(Bird). 1/many call, heard. 2 sketchy phoebe calls in the same tone as
regular calls. I heard these, and at first thought they might be a
Phoebe, since it was such characteristic Phoebe-returning weather
(though no flying Insects are out yet). But since there were no more
Sayornis-like calls, it must have been a just-before Starling mimicry.
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EOBase Narrative - beginning 4 April 2005. - filtered by NAME="Sturnus
".AND.("mimic"$LOWER(TEXT).OR."mimic"$LOWER(REMARKS))
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