And this just in from our New Zealand correspondent

Nick has his Australian correspondent over on biotechnorati, and now 4AoS has a New Zealand correspondent. You remember the comment from Steve Holmes last week on the post Thrush Horror ?

Hi!
I've just started taking an interest in bird song - because I'm woken up most mornings by one just like this in our garden in Hamilton, New Zealand. In my ignorance I didn't know what it was, but then saw the little chap, high in a Kauri tree towards the back of our house.
Ours adds in a miaou, miaou, miaou; pretty bird, pretty bird set.
Now I have to find out how to record it...
Steve

Posted by: Steve Holmes | November 21, 2011 at 06:00 AM

Hi Steve, thanks for popping into 4AoS. Even a mobile phone can record half decent bird song, if the notes aren't too high. Have a go and send it over here and I'll post it!

Posted by: Iain | November 22, 2011 at 07:17 AM

 

Well, he took me at my word and I received this very kind email from him over the weekend:

Thanks for the reply, Iain.  I’ve been trying to record the bird every morning since!

I’ve never before realised how much background noise there is in urban New Zealand.  Cars on weekdays, for a start, but we’ve also had powerful westerly winds.  My first series of recordings was a list of failures.

Finally, this morning I slipped outside with my wife’s little digital recorder, and waited for the specific “pretty bird” and cat noises that our thrush makes.  I think it took about five minutes of recording before he cooperated. 

I’ve also taken a picture of him.  Having seen yours, my shot of him from below, taken with a hand-held pocket Panasonic zoomed to maximum (300mm), is somewhat uninspiring.  If you tip your head to one side and half close one eye you can almost tell he’s a thrush.  There’s a perfectly good branch, but he seems to be sitting on it sideways.  I’ll try to do better. 

Thanks again.  This has been very stimulating; foragesofsand is quite magnificent, and I’ve only scratched the surface!

"Somewhat uninspiring"? Not at all! Great shot, I would say. Ah how jealous I am of that blue sky as I sit here looking at the bleak grey of a Monday morning in Hatfield..

 

 

But by the magic of the Internet - and this is surely what the internet was invented for - we can hear the beautiful song of the bird on the other side of the World. It's a kind of magic. 

(Steve: I amplified the sound by 200%)

 

Steve

 

And now here's a section slowed down to 30% of original speed. 

 

HamiltonNZThrush slow

Beautiful. Steve, thank you so much for sending this over. We look forward to seeing and hearing more!

 

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