Cry of a Limpkin, Hiss of a Vulture

Florida expedition yields rare recordings of birds

By Michael J. Andersen

The predawn air was still and a chorus of Barred Owls echoed in the surrounding forest of oaks and palms. After a week of windy weather and below average temperatures, a dense layer of fog hung low. As the Barred Owls retired, a loud cry rang out—the call of a Limpkin waking from its roost in a lakeside palm tree. Shortly after, just as the first of the sun's rays broke the horizon, a large flock of Black Vultures took to the air from a nearby palm grove. They flew low right over our heads and landed on the edge of the lake to wait for the sun to generate the thermals they needed to forage.

With microphones and digital audio recorders at the ready, Martha Fischer and I pushed off in our canoe in hopes of recording the sounds of the birds at Myakka River State Park in Sarasota County, Florida. This paddle marked the beginning of a year-long series of audio and video recording expeditions for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library. (See the Big Year cover story from this issue of BirdScope.)

About one year ago, the Macaulay Library staff drafted a schedule that would take us to the far reaches of the continent to record species missing from our archive. We prioritized the expeditions to maximize our time spent in those areas with the highest number of target species. Recognizing our need to plug numerous gaps of species found near the beginning of the field guide (namely long-legged wading birds and waterfowl), an early spring trip to Florida was an obvious choice for the first expedition.

The recordists captured sought-after recordings of Tricolored Heron (above) and Anhinga (below, left)

Gerrit Vyn (3)

And so it was that Martha Fischer and I were paddling the shoreline of Upper Myakka Lake in search of herons, egrets, ibis, and just about anything else that had feathers and made a sound. As we paddled away from the dock, we approached the flock of Black Vultures loafing near the dam, waiting for the sun to burn off the fog. They were quite tame and we paddled within feet of them with a microphone aimed at the densest part of the flock. They made a variety of sneeze-like vocalizations and lots of mechanical sounds with their wings as they squabbled for the best patch of shoreline. Around the perimeter of the lake various herons and egrets foraged, and many of them allowed us to inspect them closely from our canoe. We recorded the calls of Great Blue Heron and Tricolored Heron. A beautiful Purple Gallinule lurked in the shadows of some shoreline willows but remained silent.

Herons and their relatives were not our only targets. Florida is home to a unique avifauna, and these geographic novelties did not escape our attention. We spent time seeking out yellow-eyed Eastern Towhees and Bachman's Sparrows, which are different from their Texas counterparts. We also looked for two subspecies of Seaside Sparrows—the endangered Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow, which inhabits the sawgrass prairies of the Everglades, and another subspecies that breeds in northwest Florida. These differ from the widespread Atlantic coast forms that are better represented in the audio collection. A fourth subspecies, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow of east-central Florida, is extinct.

On the last day of our trip, after trying to record birds in places overrun with people, we found a quiet spot north of the Everglades. It was deep within a picturesque bald cypress swamp with tall trees growing from the swampy water. Herons and ibises fed in the shallow water around the cypress knees as alligators and Anhingas sunned themselves. In one quick afternoon, we got both male and female vocalizations from Anhinga, a major target bird that we had tried to record countless times previously. Moments like these, deep in the heart of a cypress swamp, make the effort worthwhile and rewarding.

A Roseate Spoonbill, normally a quiet species. Spoonbills become vocal at rookeries, where Andersen and Fischer recorded the high-pitched twittering calls of nestlings.

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu