Central North Carolina, USA - Mystery Bird Calling at Night (1 Viewer)

[tazer72]

Good morning,

I had a mystery bird calling last night and I'm hoping someone here can help me figure it out. The audio below was recorded at approximately 9:30PM Eastern Time. It's a very rural area south of Chapel Hill, NC near a large beaver pond (approx 5 acre pond.) The pond has a wintering population of Canada Geese on it, about a dozen, and gets Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers.

The audio (linked below) contains a series of whistles. The whistles are in 2 pitches (900hz and 1200hz), which makes me think it either 2 birds calling to each other or a single bird changing pitch.

Birds (Class Aves)

Birds in March 2024 by Mark Montazer. This was recorded about 600ft from a 5 acre beaver pond. It's either 2 birds interacting with eac...

www.inaturalist.org

The 'low bird' calls once at 3.5s, followed by the 'high bird' calling 3 times (5.5s, 7.5s, 9.5s), followed by the 'low bird' calling at 11.5s. The last 2 calls of the 'high bird' are distinct 2-note calls, like tu-tooo. And the last call of the 'low bird' is also 2-note but has a distinct downward slur to it. I've attached a copy of the Audacity spectrogram and linked to the audio on iNaturalist below.

Let me know what you all think.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[qwerty5]

Very hard to tell with all the background noise. The only owl that has such a high pitch would be Eastern Screech-Owl, but it doesn't sound right for that. Otherwise I can't think of any other birds this could be. Other animals are probably a possibility.

 

[jmepler]

I get a bit of a Tundra Swan feel, but I certainly can't say for sure.

 

[tazer72]

qwerty5, I agree with it not being a Screech-Owl. Interestingly, that's what BirdNet ID'd it as but with a low confidence, otherwise I never would have found it in the audio. It really is perplexing. I might end up reclassifying it as animal and seeing if that garners any more feedback on iNat.

jmepler, Tundra Swan certainly wouldn't be impossible for the location. I reviewed some TS vocalizations on eBird and it doesn't seem to fit, but I do appreciate the feedback.