Willow Tit song, Warsaw, 25 Feb (3 Viewers)

[01101001]

thujas, trees, garden, tall grass (NIMBY)

Randomly heard this song several times coming from the same spot. Bird not seen. Habitat rather wrong unless on some migration. Does anything mimic the song of Willow Tit? Most probably not from a human.

 

[Schneppe]

thujas, trees, garden, tall grass (NIMBY)

Randomly heard this song several times coming from the same spot. Bird not seen. Habitat rather wrong unless on some migration. Does anything mimic the song of Willow Tit? Most probably not from a human.

Hi!
Great tit is capable of mimicking Willow tit, I believe.

Cheers,

Fabian

 

[01101001]

The song, the call or both?

 

[Schneppe]

The song, the call or both?

Definetaly the call, but I could assume they can manage to mimick the song of some kind as well. Try to get a look at the bird!

 

[01101001]

I heard a ti-choo-choo from the same place but didn't manage to record it. I did, OTOH, hear beautiful Blackbird subsong encompassing Blackbird, Song Thrush, some American thrush and lots of weird buzzy calls.

 

[jogresh]

I heard a ti-choo-choo from the same place but didn't manage to record it. I did, OTOH, hear beautiful Blackbird subsong encompassing Blackbird, Song Thrush, some American thrush and lots of weird buzzy calls.

That's interesting - 2 days ago I had a Blackbird subsinging imitating a Song Thrush imitating a Tawny Owl! Off topic, sorry. 🙂🐦

 

[01101001]

Off-topic most welcome! There was a thread on XC about it (the whole website currently not loading properly for me):

Shrike mimicks warbler mimicking shrike! Can it really be?? (XC389581) :: topic 20900 :: xeno-canto

xeno-canto.org

, and someone termed it 'hypermimicry' there.

EDIT: I suppose the 'American thrush' part was something innate, not mimicked (?).

 

[01101001]

I'm possibly abusing the purpose of this thread, but (it should be very quick question) is it a Skylark's flight call--there were many more individual calls I didn't manage to capture?

 

[01101001]

Different location, same situation. An invasion of Willow Tits or Great Tits going through some March madness?

 

[lou salomon]

I'm possibly abusing the purpose of this thread, but (it should be very quick question) is it a Skylark's flight call--there were many more individual calls I didn't manage to capture?

yes, skylark.

 

[lou salomon]

Different location, same situation. An invasion of Willow Tits or Great Tits going through some March madness?

I think genuine Willow Tits. They sing at this time of year.

 

[01101001]

Hi!
Great tit is capable of mimicking Willow tit, I believe.

Cheers,

Fabian

If the below shows the said mimicry by Great Tit, then it should be possible to separate such calls from those of a legitimate Willow Tit (still, there may be other imitations (?)):

Part 4: ‘I bird with Bill Smith’ - The Sound Approach

soundapproach.co.uk

 

[lou salomon]

no, that's a more common call of Great Tit.

 

[01101001]

I've noticed an interesting relationship for Warsaw: official atlas data and Ornitho.pl data indicate that Willow Tit is thrice more common than Marsh Tit, while eBird data is slanted in the other direction.

An overdose of English-language ID resources promoting 'when in doubt, it's a Marsh Tit' policy (as opposed to Poecile sp.)? (For me, the ratio is now 4:0 in favour of Willow Tit.)

EDIT: and a decline of Willow Tit (relative to Marsh Tit) by 3 × 3 makes for an order of magnitude of a difference (during pretty much the same timeframe when it comes to Ornitho.pl vs eBird)

 

[Butty]

Willow Tit is thrice more common than Marsh Tit . . . the ratio is now 4:0 in favour of Willow Tit . . . 3 × 3 makes an order of magnitude of a difference

🤷🏻 I'm afraid your maths is nothing like the stuff I learnt at school.
Ah. You edited your post in the meantime. Still can't follow it though.

 

[01101001]

Even the Sound Approach people don't seem to check for Willow Tits anymore, which drives the ratio down, which makes people think it's extinct, which discourages checking for Willow Tits, etc.

When I first went birding around the harbour, telling Willow Tit from Marsh Tit was an issue. Not anymore, because Willow Tit has disappeared.

X's are Marsh Tits, and O's are Willow Tits. I based the crux of my reasoning on the fact that the number of Marsh Tits remains constant, which may well be wrong.

Here Willow Tits are three times more common:
OOO'OOO'OOO
XXX
Here Willow Tits are three times less common:
XXX
O
If the threes are any more than 3.0, that makes about 10. 3.17 × 3.17 is already greater than 10

 

[Jos Stratford]

Can't speak for Warsaw, but both Marsh and Willow are pretty common a little to your north here in Lithuania - however Marsh is generally more common (though can easily have a day out and see only Willow). It is worth noting that Marsh is highly sedentary, while Willow is migratory/partially migratory (and can be very common during passage - which would definitely skew abundant tallies in any given day).

At my feeding station this winter - 26 Marsh Tits, six Willow Tits. I would not like to extrapolate this to the entire city of Warsaw however 😅

 

[Jos Stratford]

Here Willow Tits are three times more common:
OOO'OOO'OOO
XXX
Here Willow Tits are three times less common:
XXX
O
If the threes are any more than 3.0, that makes about 10.

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about 🙂

 

[01101001]

The atlas was based on breeding pair tallies. Apart from my making an admittedly risky assumption (constant number of Marsh Tit), it's counterintuitive the way maths works at times is all I can say, having drawn a picture already.

EDIT:

Let there be a system of two equations:
{W_Or = 3 * M
{3 * W_eB = M
<=>
{M = 1/3 * W_Or
{3 * W_eB = M
<=>
{3 * W_eB = 1/3 * W_Or
{3 * W_eB = M
<=>
{W_eB = 1/9 * W_Or
{3 * W_eB = M
(It would be much more aesthetic if I inserted it into a matrix.)

 

[dantheman]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about 🙂

I think it is this -

(I'm not sure but it may be the same as frequently referred to by Olaf Danielson in his US Big Year Record?)