Audio: Spostern Towhee, berserk starling, gratuitous African Collared-Dove

[Ted Floyd]

Hi, all. Here's some bird audio I've gotten in the past couple weeks:

1. This spotted towhee at the Medano-Zapata Ranch, Alamosa County, Mar. 20, sang a song that wouldn't sound out-of-the-ordinary for an eastern towhee in Kentucky or Ohio. Then it switched over to a perfectly typical spotted towhee. If it's not obvious, the moral of this story is: Don't trust towhees.

Eastern-like song: http://www.xeno-canto.org/307976

Spotted-like song (same bird): http://www.xeno-canto.org/307981

2. Starlings sputter, stutter, squeal, and grunt. They also produce an astonishing array of complex vocalizations, many of them quite beautiful; and they are brilliant mimics. Check out the endlessly varied song of this European starling at Greenlee Preserve, Boulder County, Mar. 12:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/306784

3. I can't control myself. If I hear an African collared-dove, I will record it. Here is one near Greenlee Preserve, Boulder County, Mar. 25:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/309312

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County

[Charles Hundertmark]

The Spostern Towhee raises an interesting question. At the end of winter/beginning of spring, male song birds go through a period when they are regaining their song. During this period, the song is often somewhat off. In the case of two closely related species, one might wonder if during the song recovery period the bird might render elements of song from an earlier evolutionary stage before a common ancestor began differentiating into two species.

Chuck Hundertmark

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