ML611565912
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Observation details
As I was slowly walking into Barnaby Slough I became aware that I was listening to a bird calling that had the cadence of a Pacific Wren, yet sounded much like a Song Sparrow. Once I tuned into these calls I quickly realized I must be listening to a Winter Wren rather than a Song Sparrow or Pacific Wren, though that took awhile to really sink in since the species had only been found once previously in Washington! I then spent the next 40 minutes listening to it call and watching it forage through the area. It appeared to have a small territory, probably something like 70 meters by 30 meters that it worked its way around, and a few times came within 15 feet of me. It was calling very frequently and rarely went more than a few minutes without vocalizing. I only heard the one vocalization from it - the Song Sparrow-like "chimp" or "vimp" call. Visually it was quite similar to a Pacific Wren including essentially the same shape and general look. The face was relatively dull with a tan supercilium and throat and a similar ground color to the speckled cheeks. Below the throat the coloration fairly abrubtly switched to a warmer brown which extended throughout the belly with little patterning. The sides of the neck had some pale tan speckling and there were a few white flecks on the coverts. Wings were black on brown with the outer primaries being black on tan. Flanks were patterned black on brown. Back was plain brown. After walking around the area I returned to the spot about 45 minutes later and immediately heard it again for about five minutes off and on, but then it went quiet and didn't call at all for the better part of an hour. Later in the day when I returned with Joel it gave a couple more bouts of calls but in general was very quiet. On the spectrogram the strong parts of the call notes are between 2 and 5 kHz which is consistent with Winter Wren. Pacific Wren has the strong part of their call notes between 6 and 9 kHz. The specific location is maybe 50 meters before the entrance road opens up to the open area where the road splits to the east and west and the slough becomes visible. The habitat is relatively open on the left which is where the Winter Wren was spending its time. These are the coordinates: 48.482056, -121.539944
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- 3.93 MB