ML643621740
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
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- Sounds
- Call
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Media notes
This recording contains twelve soft calls from the gull in the accompanying photograph. The calls are regularly spaced. Each call appears as a double line in the spectrogram at around 1 kHz. I have never heard a gull make a sound like this.
Observation details
I photographed a subadult California Gull on the Boardwalk beach that looked like it might be sick. It was hunkered down at water’s edge. It let me approach within 5 m. Then it flew a short hop and landed on the water halfway between the beach and the Boardwalk. There were ~30x gulls far out on the lake, but this gull was all by its lonesome. I was surprised when this gull started making soft 1-syllable calls at regular 1.4 second intervals. I never heard a gull make a sound like this before. I never would have guessed that the gull was the source of the calls had I not seen its bill open and close in synchrony. I managed to get a recording where the calls are weak but clearly discernible. Merlin and BirdNET both failed to recognize the calls. If my impression was correct that the gull was sick, the calls might have been a response to illness.
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 1.52 MB