No I am certainly not "misguided" in appraisal of my birds (usually pairs) that are call syncing - I personally think it is quite common for crossbill pairs to call sync and this includes within a type/species. Have got a really good Scottish pair as an example somewhere. Wasn't implying that these "new" Fc1's were flying about call syncing en masse, just that they had maybe 'adapted' or evolved their call culturally in Fenno Scandia, perhaps over many years. I really do wish the stable isotope crossbill researchers had matched their geographic data to to call type data as this would have been more useful than biometrics eg. we can predict two modal sizes from existing data ! But having an idea of where these call types originate would have been most interesting.....but as I said there are some 'call deniers'.
I guess the point is, if they can/do sync their calls in the wild, especially at breeding time (when there could be an advantage in doing so), then a "real" mixed pair is not picked up by a researcher who analyses sonograms ( and finds the pairs calls are the same eg. they will be classified as the same type). That is the point I am making. The pressures and dynamics of living wild are very different to those impossed on laboratory birds, and whilst I accept their data and results for what they are, I do have my own experiences of wild birds.
The variant 1B calls I refer to on
my blog are unusual in that they sound very like another type (fc4/glip) but seem to "fit" with the \/\ of Fc1 (and correspond to a B excitement call, this 1B type). No one else seems to have noticed this in UK - maybe the Dutch guys have, who have a lot of experience of Type X calls. To me a Type X Fc ( 1B or parakeet) sounds "cheep", these calls sound "ki-lip" or "gi-lip" sometimes "ki-leep" eg. more like a Fc4 ! These 'appeared' in UK last year.
The reason that they sound like Fc4 glips is that the final descending component is much higher in frequency than a standard Type X/parakeet, in my experience more symmetrical, and thus sounds similar to the high 'tail' of a Fc4/glip flight call.
At the mo in NE Scotland we have Scottish, Parrot, Common 1A (four variants of Fc), Common 4E (these invaded two years ago, some still resident) and 1B ( variant ala those I described above). Still makes only 3 species as far as I am concerned.
Would rather not discuss further in this level of detail on this site, for personal reasons, but debate can be continued openly on my blog.
Cheers,
Bomby