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Scops or not? (1 Viewer)

Can't add to the ID except to agree, your bird/creature is doubtful for Scop's.

(Well it sounds like a Cuckoo now - sorry, couldn't resist :gh:)
 
Sounds like a Scops to me. I've often heard Scops, albeit the Cyprus race, give a very similar call.
 
Checked a few more recordings on Xeno-canto (including some from Cyprus) and couldn't find anything which matched the sonogram.

So just when I was ready to write it off - two nights ago this happened. Strangely just the single call again.

View attachment here we go again.mp3

Here we go again.jpg

Sounds much better for Scops to me. Here's a comparison with a known Scops call.

View attachment New plus scops.mp3

New plus scops.jpg

Of course this begs the question - what was the first one - but more importantly for me - before making a complete "mesange" of myself by submitting it - it would be good to hear others' opinions :t:
 
There can't be many things it can be apart from a toad and a Scops. I had to drag the parcs guy out of his house to listen to our Scops - first record here - he wouldn't believe it wasn't the toad and even took me to a pond where the toads were - incredibly close call. Also had some birders in the area who claimed Scops only to retreat to toad after two nights of dragging everyone out of bed...

I can only add that the female has a higher pitched call than the male - might be worth investigating on xeno.

If you can be sure that the 'noise' has been moving around as only a bird can then its got to be Scops!
 
depends on the object: i certainly can't rule out a birder having recorded a scops owl and reproducing it on the internet like in this case :king:B :)
 
lou salomon said:
it's scops owl, what else should it be.
Click to expand...

Well there's this

View attachment Midwife v unknown v Scops.mp3


Thanks to Rosbifs for highlighting the similarity with midwife toad (Simon had the same idea a while back)

Managed to find a rather poor recording to compare - the sequence is Midwife Toad - Unknown - Scops

The spectrograms don't make things any clearer to me.

midwife v unknown v scops.jpg

Not brave enough to make a judgement one way or the other, especially as the toad is common locally and there's no records of Scops. The toad reportedly calls from May to August - but it's been a very warm Autumn here.
 
Can you clear the spectograms up using the window size in prefefences? It's difficult to see what's going on there - but the toad looks to have a pretty clear 2nd harmonic and the scops call duration is longer - your recording is consistent with scops in both of these aspects.
 
Fat Paul Scholes said:
Can you clear the spectograms up using the window size in prefefences? It's difficult to see what's going on there - but the toad looks to have a pretty clear 2nd harmonic and the scops call duration is longer - your recording is consistent with scops in both of these aspects.
Click to expand...


Can you be a bit more specific Mark - what do you mean by clearing them up?


The harmonics on the unknown always worried me with one much higher than any I can find on known Scops - as I see it the Midwife shows 2 harmonics and the unknown does too. The Scops only appears to show one. I agree that the toads call appears shorter - it also appears to start more abruptly.
 
If you play around with the window size you can refine the sonogram so it's less pixellated and therefore easier to see what's going on - see http://birdsoundsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/refining-your-sonograms-with-window.html

I'm not sure the unknown shows two harmonics - there's something there but it's at a different frequency to the harmonic on the known toad. I guess it could be an unrelated noise. I see something broadly similar in frequency, duration and harmonic to the known scops call.
 
If you look at the unknown in post#1 there's a similar harmonic in about the same place - which is what is persuading me that it's not an unrelated noise.
 
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