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Sunday, 17 April 2016

Goldcrest singing

There are two territory holding male Goldcrests in my local park. Each appears centred on a large cypress. This morning, over the traffic noise, I head their incredibly high pitched, not very loud song, which appears to come from a tiny violin.
 I searched for it a bit halfheartedly, as this cypress is massive, but the Goldcrest just moved onto a smaller one. It fed, as Goldcrest do, in a rush, never stopping, but it did stop for a moment to utter his song and I managed to capture it.
This is a sonogram from the wonderful website Xenocanto of a Goldcrest song:

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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous18 April 2016 at 04:37

    That song is almost at the edge of my hearing so doubt if I would hear it in the wild.

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    1. Africa Gomez18 April 2016 at 12:17

      I feel lucky I can still hear it, I have stopped being able to hearing some cricket songs, so I am not sure how long I'll be able to.

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  2. Ralph Hancock18 April 2016 at 11:33

    Is it true that they have to eat at least one insect every 20 minutes, and will die in an hour if unfed? If so, it's enough to make anyone bustle about.

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    1. Africa Gomez18 April 2016 at 12:24

      I Ralph. I do not know. Surely they must sleep at night, but during the day, even 20 minutes seems too long. Having said that, they can migrate from Northern Europe over the North Sea, and they probably need to fatten up before that, as I don't expect them to find much food on the way. They seem to find tiny little insects on crevices in the bark of tree branches, possibly springtails, spiders, aphids, caterpillars and book-lice

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  3. Unknown18 April 2016 at 18:02

    Love this! Goldcrests were my favourite birds when I was little (4 or 5 years old), because I thought they looked so pretty in my book on birds. I've never seen one in real life though, let alone heard one! Now I know what to look for if I hear this song. :)

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  4. Africa Gomez26 April 2016 at 02:29

    Hi Vilgunn, Thank you for your comment and pleased to be of help. I hope you are lucky and see and hear your Goldcrest soon!

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