During #BlackBirdersWeek author, public speaker, photographer and birder Dudley Edmonson tweeted a video birdsong quiz with immediate answers. Click on the screenshot below to listen on Twitter.
How many songs can you identify?
p.s. All five birds are from eastern North America. The yellow warbler pictured above is not on the quiz.
If you don’t hear anything when the Twitter video plays, click the speaker icon on the video at bottom right.
Today a Quiz. Here are two super sharp photos of plants from very different families. What are they?
Quiz #1: The top photo is a focus stack of 100 images. In real life the image would be 2mm wide so I think it’s been magnified about 80 times. (This one is hard to guess. It helps to squint your eyes to make it look small.)
Quiz #2: The photo below is a focus stack of 70 macro images. What it is?
If you’re desperate for clues, click the links on the captions to view the photo descriptions. Here’s a clue for #2: It’s edible.
Have an idea? Leave a comment with your answer.
p.s. In case you’re curious … Focus stackingis a digital processing technique in which the photographer takes multiple images of the same object at different focal points, then digitally merges the photos to produce a completely in-focus image. The object has to hold still and so does the camera. It requires special software to merge the images.
This video shows how it works.
(photos and video from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
Now that the birds are singing again and more singers will arrive on migration, it’s time to practice identifying songs by ear. Yes, it’s hard to do but it’s easier if you can visualize the song.
Just like a sheet of music, a spectrogram of bird song shows how the frequency (pitch) goes up and down. The black dashes graph the frequency and length of the notes. The brown wave graphs loudness in decibels.
Play the matching audio to hear the graph: a song sparrow recorded by Ted Floyd, Xeno Canto XC374118.
This is just one example but you can learn to do it yourself and practice with two quizzes at Cornell Lab’s All About Birds.
Learn how to read the spectrograms that visualize bird song in this video: Bird Song Hero Tutorial.
Two quizzes follow the video or you can try them independently at the Bird Song Hero Challenge. TIP: Watch the sonogram as it plays! Some of them are tricky.
p.s. Did you know that birds sing harmonies we can’t hear? On the song sparrow spectrogram, above, there are tall vertical dashes during the fast part of the song. The bird is harmonizing with himself in the 12,000 HZ frequency. If you’re older than 30-something, you probably can’t hear it.
Here’s a bird you won’t see in Pennsylvania. He was photographed at Carrizo Plain National Monument, 100 miles (as the crow flies) northwest of Los Angeles, California.
Quiz: Who is this on the wire? … Notice his long legs.
(photo by Bob Wick, BLM via Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)
Here’s a puzzle. Don’t google it. Look at the photos to arrive at an answer.
In botany: What is a peduncle?
We encounter peduncles every day though we don’t use the word much anymore. Since 1950 the word has fallen out of common use and because it looks like pedophile+uncle the urban dictionary lists a raunchy meaning. But that’s not what it is.
Peduncle comes from ped (Latin for foot) plus -uncle (an Old French diminutive ending) so it literally means tiny foot.
Each photo on this page has at least one visible peduncle. Can you find it?
Black raspberries (photo by Kate St. John)Elderberries at Jennings, 4 Aug 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)Fruit of the ginkgo tree (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Here’s a clue. The number of peduncles in each photo above is:
Apples = 1
Black raspberries = 5 (three are hidden)
Elderberries = too many to count
Ginkgos = 9
Final clue: The photo below shows no fruit, but it has peduncles.
Fruit stems on a Sassafras Tree (photo by Dianne Machesney)
a. Reindeer live in Europe, Asia and North America, but on our continent they have a different name. What are they called?
Map of reindeer range (image from Wikimedia Commons)
b. Among moose, elk and white-tailed deer, only the males grow antlers. What about reindeer?
c. Reindeer coats change from winter to summer and so do their hooves. What’s different about their hooves and why do they change?
Reindeer in Svalbard (photo by Per Harald Olsen via Wikimedia Commons)
d. “Some subspecies have knees that make a clicking noise when they walk.” What’s the advantage to making this noise? (Do your knees click? Here’s an excuse for it.)
e. Reindeer do migrate and those in North America travel quite far. How far do they go?
f. Reindeer used to live in the Lower 48. Which state? And how long ago was that?
g. Where did we get the idea that reindeer can pull sleighs? Here’s a visual answer.
Reindeer pulling a sleigh circa 1900 in Archangel, Russia (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
h. Who is the leading predator of reindeer calves? (Hint: It’s a bird!)
