As I've mentioned before, the documentation of bird behavior is becoming a greater interest of mine.
The Reddish Egret above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.Normally I would be presenting images here taken this past week, but due to much time spent doing research and recording birdsong as opposed to photographing wildlife, the images are for the most part from my previous week's trip to Ding Darling NWR.
In the last six weeks or so, there has been interesting nighttime activity of birds that have been making brief stops near my residence for a few days at a time or less.
The Great Egret above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.This week involved a bird not seen until the third day when I put the beam of a flashlight into the tree to determine the species making the racket.
After determining the bird to be Northern Mockingbird, I had thoughts of the video of the Sir Attenborough study of the Superb Lyrebird in Southern Australia.
The Snowy Egret above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The Lyrebird is noted to remarkably imitate upwards of 20 other bird species, a car alarm, a camera's shutter mechanism, and a chainsaw cutting the forest within its surroundings.
While I'm very unlikely ever to see or hear the Lyrebird firsthand, another bird species that is perhaps equally as interesting is the appropriately named Northern Mockingbird.
The Tricolored Heron above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The mockingbird and starling are species of bird that are adept imitators.
I often see the Northern Mockingbird in my efforts to observe wildlife but rarely hear its call.
The Red-breasted Merganser above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The Northern Mockingbird is the state bird of Florida and four other states.
The male mockingbird is commonly known to be heard at night (unlike most other bird species I'm aware of) with its song certainly an effort to attract a mate.
The White Pelican above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The recording of bird song with high tech recording equipment that I had anticipated engaging in during retirement is unexpectedly underway with nothing more than my cell phone and computer.
Recording attempts were made over several nights ranging from minutes to over an hour where through practice I was able to figure out what I was doing.
The Pied-billed Grebe above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.One 30 minute attempt was met with failure as I accidentally turned off the recorder when I placed the phone strategically in the tree's branches.
With a total of about two hours of mockingbird recording under my belt within a half dozen files, I began my investigation of a way to offer the best and longest recording to you here.
The Red-breasted Merganser above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The drone of distant automobile traffic was regretfully unavoidable even at two o'clock in the morning.
I am impressed with how Birdjam presents its audio capability and asked them if I could emulate their service.
The Ring-billed Gull above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.I received a prompt reply advised to utilize Youtube as an entry level approach.
That wasn't considered the best help, so I began research on other options of having an audio file of the mockingbird's song accessible here.
The Snowy Egret juvenile above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.A lot of time was spent with a solution determined if you ever have an interest in uploading an audio file created by a cell phone.
The phone's AMR file conversion to a computer friendly one I was unsure of.
The Double-crested Cormorant above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.Conversion to an MP3 file verses a WAV file was decided upon due to the former reportedly usable with more computer programs.
It may have been a poor choice as the 76 minute AMR audio file at just over 7MB of memory converted to 105MB which seems like a comparatively awful waste of space.
The Red-breasted Merganser above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.My conversion of the AMR file to MP3 was made by a program provided by Miksoft which I highly recommend for its speed and simplicity.
I will return to Miksoft to make a donation for their resourceful product.
The Ring-billed Gull above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.Then was the decision that had to be made of the host for the file where I investigated four options other than Youtube.
I first looked into Fileden which I frequently see affiliated with many of the musical songs that are incorporated into the Playlist gadget seen here.
The Reddish Egret above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.This is where I wasted most of my time as I encountered a "fatal" error when attempting to become a member.
I really like the slick appeal and "simplicity" of Uploadrobots, but hit a snag there when the MP3 file size of the Northern Mockingbird recording couldn't be uploaded with the constraints of their free service.
The White Pelican above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.Filedropper was also investigated where I reached the point where a file became available to "download."
Since I know you don't want to do that, I then had the best impression with 4shared.
The Reddish Egret with Double-crested Cormorant above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The upload of the relatively large audio file transferred at 4shared extremely quickly in comparison to Fileden.
Well, let's get back to the mockingbird.
The Osprey above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The bird was very entertaining to study and hopefully worth your interest in listening to.
I've found the bird that had chosen to perch in a tree closest to me to be stunningly varied in its song.
The mixed shorebirds above were photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.This bird was the most adept with two of his competitors heard at greater distances clearly not having anywhere near the diversity of song.
The Northern Mockingbird male is thought to have between 50 and 200 songs in its repertoire.
The Red-breasted Merganser above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.With my longest recording at over an hour, I haven't had the time to determine if the bird repeats its song within it.
I wish I were more more knowledgeable of song and calls of different species as I can only recognize a handful of them in the recording and hope you can help identify them all.
The Red-breasted Merganser above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.The image of the band of Bald Eagle 862 is presented below as promised with another angle of it offering additional detail.
The juvenile eagle should be near ready to take flight from its nest with no competition for food from a sibling as observed this year.
The Bald Eagle above was photographed at Lovers Key State Park at Big Carlos Pass in January 2011.Please consider enjoying the song of the Northern Mockingbird by pressing play at far left of the gadget below . . .
The Little Blue Heron above was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in February 2011.