Northern Wheatear Mimicry; Early Spring Soundscapes from Sandemar Reserve

Over the course of Spring 2024, I was presented with a wonderful opportunity to carry out a single species project by way of good providence.  It seemed my luck was in, when a single male Northern Wheatear took up territory at Landsort, Sweden. The bird chose to sing regularly on the roof of the island's bird observatory, right next to my deployed SM Mini field recorder. As I began to listen to the recorded song strophes, it was very obvious that this individual was an astounding mimic. This single individual male bird was mirroring it's sonic environment, demonstrating it's ability to mimic species in real time as a life long learner. This prompted me to break down the audio of this incredible little songbird and attempt to unravel the species it was immitating, when it was doing so and whether it was responding to it's immediate environment in real time...

Following this initial song magazine, I will bring you on another relaxing acoustic journey. I present a long sound magazine made at a wonderfully biodiverse reserve, just south of Stockholm City. Experience the wonderful early Spring soundscapes at Sandemar Reserve, Sweden. Here there are a number of different habitats, which are full of singing birds in Spring. I spent a lot of time at this very special place in 2024 and managed some rather special audio whilst field recording there. I wish to share this, with you, the listener's...

Transcript

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  You're all very welcome to wild bird acoustics. I'm your host, Alan Dalton, and I'll be taking you on a journey into sound. 

 Now, welcome everybody to season two episode eight. I have a wonderful episode for you and I'm going to start off with shorts and magazine of a species. I didn't expect actually to cover with regard to one of my favorite subjects,  which is mimicry. Now the species is northern wheat here and an opportunity presented itself last year when a bird took up territory right beside my recorder on the roof of the observatory at Lansart, regularly singing through the spring and as the spring went on I realized this board was an incredible mimic, not only was it an incredible mimic, it was mimicking species that were passing by at certain times of the year.

So for example, when the first green sandpipers started to pass overhead, the board almost immediately started to incorporate them into its song. And this is a theme that just continued through the spring. So ...e end of another episode of Wild Bird Acoustics, and I hope you've enjoyed it. As always, you can find us on YouTube by simply searching for Wild Bird Acoustics. We do have a mailing list also, and if you want to be part of that, folks, you can drop us an email at wildbirdacoustics at gmail.

com.  Now, all feedback is gratefully received here at the podcast, and if you'd like the right review of the podcast, you can do so at the Buzzsprout header page. In addition, if you'd like to make a small financial donation to the podcast, you can do so using the buy me a coffee button, and you'll find that also on the Buzzsprout header page. 

We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more from Wild Bird Acoustics. Until then, take it easy folks. And as always, don't be afraid to get out into the field and relax and just listen to the wildlife out there. Maybe even do a little bit of field recording of your own.  We'll talk to you soon folks. Take it easy.

That's all from Wild Bird Acoustics.