"poor will" flight call at night

[Jim Tyler]

1.  There is a flight call that I hear only at night from a bird flying over the hogback. It sounds exactly like "poor will". The first syllable is a bit downward-pitched and the second syllable is quicker and slightly upward-pitched. It is not as fast as whippoorwill calls I've heard online, and is missing the first syllable of the typical whippoorwill calls. It is clearly in flight as the source of the call moves quickly. Any ideas what this bird might be?

2.  I was watching a crow on my back fence the other morning and it was cawing lustily, when suddenly it put its head down and to the left and said "hello, hello, hello". It cawed again, head up, then ducked its head and repeated the "hello, hello, hello" before flying off. I've seen crows as pets mimicking speech, but this is the first crow I've seen in the wild making sounds like human speech. Anyone else seen this before?

3.  Third, and finally, while I love having White-crowned Sparrows in the back yard, they consistently, and *much* more frequently than other birds, poop in my bird baths. While I've not actually seen them do this, my bird baths remain much cleaner when they're not around. Anyone else see this behavior?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Jim Tyler
Roxborough

[Lynne Forrester]

Jim,

The crows in my neighborhood have made that same guttural hello call for several years. I've noticed it's usually an older youngster. It's the crows who make my birdbath a mess, especially this time of the year now that the babies have hatched. 

Lynne Forester 

Littleton, Jeffco

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From: cob...@googlegroups.com <cob...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jim Tyler <jim_...@comcast.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 8, 2024 9:02:35 PM
To: cob...@googlegroups.com <cob...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [cobirds] "poor will" flight call at night

 

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