strange sounds

In what seemed like the middle of the night, I was awakened by a mysterious melodious chortling coming from above and drifting through a partially opened bedroom window. It was the so-called Dawn Song of a male Purple Martin. It ought to be called the pre-Dawn Song since there was hardly even the slightest glow of morning light on the horizon; it was a little after 4 am on a cloudy morning. This song is generally said to serve the purpose of attracting other Martins that might be wandering in the vicinity to the colony. But this can hardly be the explanation for our  colony which is full to over-full already. And how is this particular male selected to sing the song out of all the males in the colony? Is he elected by all the martins to be the Senior Martin Meistersinger? Or do all the males fan out to distribute their music over a wide territory, one for each residential lot (our house must be a good half mile from colony)? Or is this just an unmated male hoping to attract a wife? But what would a female martin be doing wandering around in the darkness of night waiting for the call of the male? All very mysterious especially since the song is sung on many nights -- perhaps nightly -- during the spring and early summer in near darkness by an essentially daylight bird!

Another strange vocalization: yesterday afternoon, Lorna heard a strikingly odd series of sounds coming from a tree in front of the house. Squeaks and rumbles and a sound like the clattering of a bill. At first she thought it might be a cuckoo; later she wondered if it was a Yellow-breasted Chat. I came out to try and help but, of course, as soon as I arrived on the front deck, the bird stopped vocalizing, leaving only the squeaking of two trees rubbing against one another in the rather gusty winds. No, Lorna insisted, that's not what she heard. So who or what was making these odd sounds? It turned out to be a Common Starling, a bird noted in the Old World for its imitative abilities (Mozart is said to have kept one as a pet because it could whistle one of his tunes!). I've never heard a New World Starling that could compete with a Mockingbird in this category but starlings certainly have their squeaks and whistles.

Yet another: two or three loud hawk-like shrieks. Not the wimpy calls of a Bald Eagle or the distinctive sound of a Red-tail Hawk but a strong loud downward scream. I charged into the woods, looking high above to find the bird but what turned up was a ragged looking Common Crow being chased by a Blue Jay. Crows don't make sounds like hawks (I don't think) but Jays are known to imitate the call of a Red-shouldered Hawk, a rarity on Long Island and only seen here once before. If it was the Jay, perhaps he/she was trying to scare away a marauding crow by imitating the call of an even more threatening predator. Moments later the rains came and I retreated having seen and heard more than enough for a foggy, misty, rainy late May morn.

Eric Salzman