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(Savi's?) Warbler Song, Minsmere RSPB (1 Viewer)

L

Louis_P

Average Birder
Hello everyone, a few weeks ago I was in the Island Mere hide at Minsmere RSPB and I heard the bird in the attached recording. The recording is rubbish as I only just got my Zoom H1 recorder and haven't got round to buying it a wind muff and it was quite windy that day. Also, I am yet to get into audio editing so the recording is unedited :( . At around 30 seconds onwards you should be able to hear some brief snatches of song.

The bird was the other side of the 'mere' so the recording may also be quiet! So sorry again that the recording is really bad.

Thanks for any help,
LouisP

Edit - The file is too big, see this (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xR91HSS5nEt5A46dyWIBFIJWxcobXMkZ/view?usp=sharing) instead.
 
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Wow! A great tick for me (even if I did only hear it). Your ears must be fine tuned to identify it from that recording.

Thanks,
Louis P
 
It's a very distinctive song (not easily forgotten once heard!), lower pitched, faster and more buzzing than Grasshopper :t:


ID is more complex in parts of Europe where it can be confused with some insects (a mole cricket species I think?), but they don't occur in East Anglia.
 
Here's a sonogram of part of your unedited recording. The sound within the green ring is your bird, reeling at c. 4 khz, which confirms Savi's. Gropper reels at about 6 Khz, so as Nutcracker says, it's noticeably lower pitched.
 

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Thanks again both of you.

Unlikely I will be hearing another Savi's soon (but you never know). Sonograms look interesting as despite all the wind noise it shows the Savi's song. I will have to download Audacity and try it out with some of my better recordings (Nightjar and Sedge Warbler so far).

As soon as I heard it I thought Savi's because of the location (often heard at Minsmere) and because I always like to think I have seen/heard something rare (I am normally disappointed to find out it is something common later). I had heard my first Grasshopper Warbler a few weeks earlier and it definitely sounded different to the Savi's.
 
It's a song that carries a surprising distance too - that last one I had (in a marsh in southern Portugal) I triangulated its position from 2 points, and as a result managed to see it perched in a bush; measuring on google earth it was 120 metres from where I was listening/watching, and I could hear it loud and clear. It was still audible even from 200+ metres.
 
Nutcracker said:
It's a song that carries a surprising distance too - that last one I had (in a marsh in southern Portugal) I triangulated its position from 2 points, and as a result managed to see it perched in a bush; measuring on google earth it was 120 metres from where I was listening/watching, and I could hear it loud and clear. It was still audible even from 200+ metres.
Click to expand...

It does travel..and changes volume and even "tone" when it faces another angle. If its too windy however they can be almost inaudible. I wonder if you were at my local Savi's site? ;)

edit; your triangulating was what we would say in Portuguese - cabeça pensadora! :t: They are frequently difficult to locate!
 
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Simon Wates said:
I wonder if you were at my local Savi's site? ;)

edit; your triangulating was what we would say in Portuguese - cabeça pensadora! :t: They are frequently difficult to locate!
Click to expand...


37.073859°N, 8.805785°W
Not too difficult to locate, took me about 5 or at most 10 mins of scanning. The tour leader was confident I wouldn't succeed at all, got a surprise when I showed it to him in my scope :-O
 
It would be really nice to see one but to be honest I didn't even think it was worth trying to scan for it through my scope.
 
Nutcracker said:
37.073859°N, 8.805785°W
Not too difficult to locate, took me about 5 or at most 10 mins of scanning. The tour leader was confident I wouldn't succeed at all, got a surprise when I showed it to him in my scope :-O
Click to expand...

Yes that's the site - and probably the bird I watch most! My trick there is to get up the steep slope between the pines a few metres - then if its hidden from below on the track there's more chance, usually works ;) By the way, this is probably the best site in the Algarve, where its a rare/scarce breeder. The strongholds in Portugal are much further north.
 
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