We are such birders. The more we bird, the more we listen. If there isn't
much going on, listening gives us clues on which way to look if something
does make a noise. If we happen to recognize a call, we know something
about where to look, more than just which way to look. If there are
multiple calls, it's fun to see how many we can recognize. Unless we
recognize something unusual, we'll tend to focus on the calls we don't
recognize and try to spot them. Even without specifically memorizing
calls, we recognize quite a few now. The more times we connect a call to a
bird, the more likely we are to recognize the call the next time we hear it.
We were watching birds at a pond in New Mexico in the summer, to a
background of bird sounds we recognized, when we heard it. A familiar
sound. So familiar, but we couldn't quite put a name to it. A high-pitched
kind of chirping, a chipping noise. What bird makes that sound? We
couldn't call it. It was so distracting. Here were all these great birds
to watch in the pond, and there was this repetitious chipping calling noise
from behind us. But there was nothing behind us, an empty field with a few
scrubby bushes and trees in the background. Birds of prey make a
surprisingly light, repetitious call. Not a deep manly call you'd expect
from a bird that kills and eats things. Reminiscent of a bird of prey, but
that's not it.
Smaller birds, warblers, make a chipping sound, but this was too robust to
be a small bird. It was something very familiar. Something large. We had
met an experienced birder while we were there, he was helping us identify
birds in the pond, but he was no help with the mystery sound. Painfully
familiar, but he couldn't call it either. He was puzzled too. We hear it,
we look, it stops, we look back at the pond, it starts again.
And so it goes, until Judy figures it out. With the resounding sound of a
self-administered slap to the forehead, Judy figures it out. It was not a
bird, it was a prairie dog. The empty field behind us was not empty. There
were dirt clods in it. Little dirt clods, about half the size of Annie,
indistinguishable from the dirt around them, that dig holes, scurry about,
chirp to signal danger, then dive in their holes. Such a familiar sound,
that chirping. They're all over Colorado. We've lived with them for thirty
years.
We are such birders.
