How to Identify Evening Grosbeak Call Types

I've written here previously about the different "call types" of Evening Grosbeak, which correspond closely to subspecies and which may in fact even represent cryptic species.  Recently I've been helping other birders in my local community to identify the call types, so that they can enter sightings in eBird more specifically.  The truth is, though, it's really not that hard to do it yourself, if you have the right equipment, and the chances are that you either have everything you need already, or can get it for free.  Here's a step-by-step guide to identifying your Evening Grosbeak call types.

Two Evening Grosbeaks from northern Utah, where Type 1 dominates but Type 4 has also been recorded.

1) Record the birds.

The first step is to get audio recordings of Evening Grosbeaks calling.  A lot of people get turned off of the idea already, but this is actually quite simple.  Most birders are already carrying smart phones, and there are many free apps for recording sound snippets.  I used an app called "ACR" when I had an Android phone, but anything that lets you record sound will work.  Something most birders don't even think of is that almost all modern cameras can record video, and this is an equally effective way to record sound.  Of course, a nice shotgun or parabola mic is ideal, but if you can make a short video with your phone or point-and-shoot camera, that will be enough to identify the birds.  The software we'll use in the next step is very versatile when it comes to file formats.  It helps to know where on the camera or phone the microphone is located, and point that in the direction of the birds.  It might not be the same side of the device as the camera lens!

2) Import the sound into audio editing software.

I recommend using Audacity: it's free, powerful, available on all common platforms (Mac, PC, etc.), and pretty straightforward to use.  Raven is another great alternative, with the only weakness I know being that the latest free version isn't compatible with the latest Mac operating system.  In most cases you will be able to simply drag and drop your audio or video file onto the icon for your audio editing software to open it.  If the software refuses, I find a "force open" usually works: for some uncommon video formats, I have to hold "option" plus "command" on my Mac when dropping the file on the icon, and then it works.

Here's a pretty typical example of some Type 1 Evening Grosbeak calls that I recorded in my yard and then visualized using the free program Audacity.

3) Make a sonogram.

Again, this is not as tricky as it might sound.  If either of the above two programs opens your file, you'll see the sonogram right on your screen.  Adjust both the vertical (frequency) and the horizontal (time) zooms until the sonogram looks about right.  Then use a screen grab to save the image to your desktop.  In Macs, you can do this by typing the "command"key, shift, and the number 4 at the same time, and then drawing a box around the area of interest.  In PCs, you can use Alt + PrintScreen.  (You might need to then paste into an image editor like Paint to see the image, then save it.)

4) Match the sonogram to the call type.

Unlike Red Crossbills, Evening Grosbeaks have only about five distinct call types.  Download this paper, Sewell et al. 2004, and simply compare your sonograms to the examples in Figure 1!

5) Enter your data in eBird.

Here's your chance to really contribute to science: enter your sightings in eBird, and be sure to specify the call type and include a link to your sonogram.  Keep in mind that in most areas, you'll have to add the call type to the list manually, by clicking "add species" and then searching for "Evening Grosbeak," and selecting the relevant type.  Evening Grosbeak call types are sorely under-represented in eBird, but together we can fix that!

eBird has only a few examples of Evening Grosbeak call types entered so far.  Most of them are from northern Utah, where I've been helping people to identify call types from their recordings.  eBird has only one record each for Types 2 and 4, and none for Types 3 or 5.

St. Paul Island, part 2: Breeding songbirds

In the last installment, I wrote about the variety of birds that breed in the cliffs of St. Paul Island, Alaska, including some very unique species.  Today I'd like to introduce you to the four songbirds that regularly breed on St. Paul. Yup, there's only four!

Among the most common of the breeding songbirds here is the Lapland Longspur.  Lapland Longspurs song sounds a bit like that of the Western Meadowlark, and can be heard from all around during the spring and early summer on the island.

A male Lapland Longspur, one of the most abundant species on the island.  (This and all photos on this post are copyright by the author, Ryan O'Donnell.) 

Another relatively common breeding species on the island is the Snow Bunting.  This species usually nests among rocks, so it is frequently found near the cliffs but also in quarries and other areas where the recent volcanic rocks crop out above the vegetation.  McKay's Buntings have been found in the breeding season on St. Paul Island in the past, but not this year and never in considerable numbers.

A male Snow Bunting guarding his territory at the edge of a boulder field.

A juvenile Snow Bunting, out of the nest for a few days or maybe weeks.

St. Paul Island is also home to an endemic subspecies of Pacific Wren (recently known as Winter Wren).  The Pribilof Pacific Wren is much more common on nearby St. George Island, and has reportedly gone extinct on St. Paul Island and recolonized from St. George (Hanna 1920).  It can be told from most of the mainland birds by its larger size and longer bill.  It is a year-round resident on the island, which is amazing considering that it eats only insects and given the winter conditions there!  Last winter was particularly harsh, and this summer we were only able to find one male on territory on the whole island.

A Pribilof Pacific Wren perched on a lichen-covered rock at the edge of a fur seal colony.

The last of the regularly breeding songbirds is also the most morphologically unique.  The Pribilof subspecies of the Gray-crowned Rosy Finch has a head pattern like the Hepburn's subspecies, but is much larger than the mainland subspecies.  The National Geographic book lists it at 8.25 inches long, only 0.25 inches smaller than a European Starling.  They are sometimes referred to as the "St. Paul House Sparrow" because they nest in the eaves of the buildings in town (as well as natural cavities in rocks, etc., around the island), and there are no real House Sparrows on the island.  

A Pribilof Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch on the makeshift platform seed feeder outside our apartment. 

Another Pribilof subspecies Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch.  Both of these photos show adults, but sexes do not differ in plumage.

Up next from St. Paul Island, Alaska? Well, we'll see. . . . Probably either the last of the breeding birds (shorebirds and waterfowl), or some common migrants.

Evening Grosbeak Call Types

Like Red Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks, Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) have been described as having distinct call types that vary geographically (Sewall et al. 2004). These distinct call types also correspond approximately with subspecies that have been described based on morphology. Because of these distinct call types which correlate to geography and morphology, it has been suggested that Evening Grosbeaks may be in need of further taxonomic work, that is, that they may be candidates for future splitting. In that Sewall et al. paper, they leave northern Utah as a question mark in their map, an unsampled area between the ranges of (morphologically-defined) subspecies C. v. brooksi and C. v. warreni, where no birds were examined and no calls recorded.

Yesterday I recorded a small flock of 4-6 Evening Grosbeaks calling in the treetops above my yard in Logan, Utah. Evening Grosbeak call types are distinct enough that they can be told apart by ear, but I don't have any practice at this so I imported recordings into the software RavenLite to examine the sonograms.

Most of the calls were of Type 1. This is the call type that is given by C. v. brooksi, the subspecies which ranges from Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming north to northern British Columbia. Here is a sonogram of a Type 1 call I recorded yesterday:

And here is a recording of Type 1 calls from Washington you can listen to:


In my recording yesterday, I was also able to pick out a few examples of Type 4 calls in my recordings, which is typical of C. v. warreni and mapped by Sewell et al. as occurring from about the Uintah Mountains, through Colorado, to northern Arizona and northern New Mexico. Here is a sonogram of one of the Type 4 calls from my yard:


And here are some Type 4 calls from Colorado you can listen to:


Sewall et al. documented both call types 1 and 4 from northwestern Wyoming and southern Colorado. It appears that both call types also occur in northern Utah. More work will have to be done to tell whether this is the result of movement of individuals, intergradation between subspecies, or overlap between reproductively isolated cryptic species.

Sewall, K., R. Kelsey, and T. P. Hahn. 2004. Discrete variants of Evening Grosbeak flight calls. Condor 106:161-165.

White-crowned Sparrow Subspecies in Utah

One of the things that I love about birding is that the challenges never stop coming; there's always more to learn.  Once a birder has a pretty good handle on the species found in his or her area, they often move on to trying to tell subspecies apart.  This might sound quite intimidating at first, but for some subspecies, it can be pretty easy.

There are two subspecies of White-crowned Sparrow that regularly occur in Utah.  Mountain White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha; also called "Interior West White-crowned Sparrows") breed here, as you might expect, mostly in the mountains.  Gambel's White-crowned Sparrows (Z. l. gambelii) winter here, having migrated down from their breeding range in the western taiga of northern Canada.  Around the same time Gambel's are arriving from the north, the Mountains are heading south, leaving the state to winter in southern Arizona and northern Mexico.  There are a few eBird records of Mountain subspecies wintering in Utah, but I've never actually seen one documented here in Utah: I suspect it is very rare if it occurs at all in Utah in winter, but please comment below if you've documented Z. l. oriantha in Utah in winter.

Telling these two subspecies apart is relatively easy.  Gambel's have a yellowish bill and pale lores; Mountains have a pinkish bill and dark lores.  (The lores are the area between the eye and the bill.  Look to see whether the dark line that both subspecies have behind the eye continues in front of the eye to connect with the stripe on the side of the crown.)  Bill color is a little less reliable in young birds, but even the young ones usually have the appropriate color lores.

It is always possible that one of the other three subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows could show up in Utah, but this would be very unlikely.  Start by practicing telling these two subspecies apart, and you'll be more prepared for a vagrant of another subspecies.  For more on distinguishing subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows apart, see this and this post from David Sibley; for the VERY interested, see this extensive treatment, also by Sibley.

Adult Mountain White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. oriantha,  Logan, Cache County, Utah.  11 May 2011.

Adult Mountain White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. oriantha, Antelope Island, Davis County, Utah.  7 May 2011.

Adult Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii, Washington County, Utah.  19 Mar 2011.

Immature Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii, Cache County, Utah.  20 Feb 2011.

Immature Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii.  Gunlock Reservoir, Washington County, Utah.  16 Mar 2007.

Probably an adult Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii, Beaver Dam Wash, Washington County, Utah.  28 Nov 2009.  This individual appears to have an unusually dark bill relative to most Gambel's.  Are those brownish sides?  Are the white stripes dingier than expected for Gambel's?  This might be worth looking at again when I get more experience: is this possibly a vagrant of a Pacific Northwest subspecies?

(All photos copyright Ryan O'Donnell)

Lesser Sandhill Crane?

While out this afternoon, I photographed a Sandhill Crane in Benson, Cache County, Utah that was significantly smaller than its 20 or so companions. I've been under the impression that the only subspecies of Sandhill Crane expected in Utah is Greater (Grus canadensis tabida). This one looked to me like a Lesser Sandhill Crane (G. c. canadensis). However, I don't know whether I've ever seen the third migratory subspecies, Canadian Sandhill Cranes (G. c. rowani), which are intermediate in size between Greaters and Lessers. eBird is of little help here because apparently no Sandhill Crane records from Utah in eBird have been identified to subspecies. Does anyone know anything about subspecies of Sandhill Crane in Utah? Does this (left-most bird) look like a Lesser to you?