[rba] Chat in Rice County?

[Dave Bartkey]

Hi everyone,

   I'm reluctant to post this, but this morning at around 5:50 am, I'm
fairly certain that I heard a Yellow-breasted Chat singing in the trees
along the river behind my apartment in Faribault. I took our dog out, and
immediately when I opened the door, I heard some very loud, sweet whistles,
with lots of space between notes, I thought," That's one loud catbird!"
then, I heard some odd nasally chattering, almost reminiscent of a Bobolink,
but deeper. The whistles lasted for about 20 seconds, but the chattering
went on for quite awhile. I did not see the bird, but when I went back
upstairs, I pulled up a website that had chat calls on it, and the chat
featured did a variety of songs, but part of the song sounded exactly like
the bird outside. While it had catbird-like qualities, I ruled out catbird
and oriole immediately. They really don't sound even close to this, and I
have some experience with chats. I know they do a lot of different things
including a lot of rattles. 

 

  I need to be off to work, but if anyone wishes to check this out, the bird
was heard between Ravine St. and the footbridge just a block south along the
Straight River. Anyone daring enough to follow up on this, good luck, and I
hope you don't waste all that gas in vain! Drop me a note on your findings
as well, if you don't mind.

 

Good birding!

 

Dave Bartkey

Faribault, MN

screechowl at charter.net 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-rba_moumn.org/attachments/20080707/49803821/attachment.html