July 10th Bird Communication

Good morning everyone! The sun rose orange today right before 6 a.m., reminding us that the days indeed are getting shorter. It is still chilly at 52°F but the forecast promises that we will reach 81°F today! The Canadian high pressure system is still above us promising sunny and dry weather for the next 24 hours at least. Then, either a warm front to the West or a cold front from the Northeast will catch up with us, and rain is very possible tomorrow.

Today we have a funny bird story to share. We’ve been hearing a very interesting catbird initiate a long monologue at night. Catbirds mimic other birds and can have a string of calls to repeat, interrupted by its classic cat hisses. That’s how they are easily recognizable – no other bird keeps on going like the catbird in these parts of the world! Well, imagine my surprise when we heard a bird outside that shouldn’t be there.

“Come here! There’s a new bird outside!” cried my non-blogging human to my blogging one, knowing her propensity to birds.

“That’s not a new bird,” my blogging human said upon arriving. “That’s a catbird – hold on a second!”

And sure enough, we all heard a bird call that should not be there. Out of the beak of a catbird, we heard – we kid you not – a bird from the Southern Hemisphere. We heard a Brazilian João de Barro, a bird that shouldn’t make its way outside of Brazil and Argentina. (Its English name is “red ovenbird” but seeing as they build their nests out of red mud in Brazil, I think likening this bird to our ovenbird is a bad idea).

So how in the blazes did that happen?

It turns out my human has a Brazilian bird clock that was gifted to her by her mother. Every hour, the clock chimes with a bird song. The João de Barro is the 1 o’clock bird and has a very distinctive, almost percussion-sounding chatter. Our catbird picked up on a piece of his call, as well as our 9 o’clock bird, an Uirapuru, and was repewting their calls at just before 9 p.m., at dusk. Thanks to technology, our Northern hemisphere birds are listening to Southern hemisphere birds.

What if the pre-recorded birds were really transmitting a message to each other? Like, “Honey, we’re out of sticks, can you get more?”. What if our Northern hemisphere birds are the ones receiving this pre-recorded message and as they hear it every day, trying to interpret it?

Well, we are honored the catbird decided to choose a Southern repertoire, although we feel slightly guilty of leaving a bigger ecological footprint than we had suspected – even if “virtually”!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Love,

Mack