There is a
new Tufted Titmouse singing in our back yard this year. Why is this meaningful to me?
When West
Nile virus arrived in Cleveland in 2002, our neighborhood and all the
surrounding areas lost all our Crows, half our Blue Jays, a considerable number
of our Chickadees, and the beautiful songs of all our Titmice.
It took 5
years for them to make a comeback, and I was so happy to finally hear their
cheerful songs again. The Titmice became
well-established residents again and were regulars at our feeders year-round.
Each Tufted
Titmouse has a repertoire of different songs and will frequently switch between
them. The male who claimed our back yard
as his territory for the past few years had one exceptionally nice song that
was quite distinctive. Here he is on
March 4, 2010.
His spirited song was related to a more common Titmouse song that he also sang:
His special song was an ascending major 3rd embellished it with two introductory notes. This song was his very own, and for me it became the song that identified our back yard as home for me as well as for him. Even now, when I play the recording of his distinctive song my little gray cat Dmitri immediately turns his head and looks out the window. I have really missed this bird and his family!
Lisa -- I didn't notice the dip in Titmice last summer that you noted, but I did notice that they came roaring back on the Christmas Bird Count two years ago (2011-12). They seemed pretty well represented this CBC, too. I wonder if your drop last summer was very local. It would be interesting to look at the CBC numbers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your observations of the details of the songs. These are subtleties that tend to pass me by unless I'm recording.