[Birdtalk] scarlet tanager in Holladay?

[Lu Giddings]

To anyone interested,

this falls in the "I know it sounds crazy, but what the hey" category. My
wife works in the two-story office building on the southwest corner of 4500
S and 2300 E. I was outside her building in the SW corner of the parking lot
at about 4 pm today, waiting for her and listening to the birds. In addition
to the robins, black-capped chickadees, house finches, and western tanagers,
I heard a bird that I initially thought was a western tanager but it was
different. It sounded, tonally, similar to a western tanager but its cadence
was distinctive - delivered mostly in bursts of three to five notes - and
nothing like any of the western tanager songs or calls I've ever heard. I've
since returned home and have listened to nearly all of the western tanager
tracks at xeno-canto (http://xeno-canto.org/) and also at the Macaulay
Library (http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do) and cannot find a song or call
like the one I heard. I've listened to the songs of all of the other north
American tanagers and other species with similar songs I can think of
(American robin, black-headed grosbeak) and again, did not craw a match. The
song closest to the one I heard was that of the scarlet tanager, as heard at
the Macaulay library. I didn't have binos with me and saw nothing of the
bird. I won't be in a position to return to Salt Lake until Monday at the
earliest. But on the off-chance, it might perhaps be worth five minutes of
some one's time, if you have nothing better to do.

Thanks,

Lu Giddings
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/birdtalk/attachments/20090507/cd131c9a/attachment-0001.htm