Unveiling the Hidden Chirps

From the lush foliage and dense branches of trees, bird chirpings often echo, revealing their presence while remaining elusive. Such encounters have led me to appreciate the art of spotting these hidden avian performers.

This morning I was walking on a trail by the eastern side of swan lake, I heard loud unfamiliar bird calls periodically in relatively high frequency - 2 per minute. I stopped walking, looked up to a tall tree, where the sound came from, saw dense tree branches and leaves, nothing else. But chirps did not stop. I looked up and down, left and right, and finally got a glimpse of a bird shaped object through a good angle, blue sky background revealed the bird!  

Using my camera, I finally saw the bird more clearly …It tuned out to be a banded woodpecker, which I saw a couple times before. Once was at the Nassim Gate car park where I saw banded woodpeckers for the first time, once was at Hampstead wetland. Here is my recording of banded woodpecker calls from the first sighting.

Interestingly, and it is almost always true, once the camouflage is exposed, it has no camouflage effect any more. Same here, I could see the banded woodpecker easily after I spotted it,  even with a more camouflaging background! The woodpecker was apparently make mating calls, I heard similar echoing calls from nearby trees, and in a couple minutes, the bird took off, flying to a nearby tree, its reddish brown plumage in its flight was beautiful in the background of blue sky.  

This encounter reminded me of another encounter two weeks ago at echo lake. Lily and I were having our daily walk at the garden, this time by Echo Lake, at dusk.

We heard loud bird calls - "graak" "graak", hoarse and throaty sound (recording from internet) - we looked at the direction of the sound and saw nothing. Changing view angles to the source of sound, and my eyes adjusted to the surrounding of the location …I eventually saw a Grey Heron on top of a tree making calls once in a while, no hiding in the tree at all. What an example of  "look but not see"!

The image of a grey heron in my mind is a large water fowl, standing still at water's edge stoically, and quietly. I occasionally see them in the trees, but rarely on top of trees. I heard their calls before when our kayak was too close to them - they took off and screamed "fraak".

Another day, I was walking on red brick path at the garden, I heard this bird calls I did not hear before. I looked at the direction of the sound, saw nothing, I kept walking. I heard the chirps again, and again. My curiosity rose, I stopped walking, standing under the tree the chirps came from, I walked around the tree, looking up from different angles, and thus different light hues, I finally saw the well camouflaged lineated barbet which had green feathers - the color of tree leaves, and dark grey/white breast and head  - the color of tree barks. When it chirps, it did not open its mouth, the sound is purely throaty, "guko" "guko"

It is tremendously satisfying when I spotted the well camouflaged bird.

Can you see the Lineated Barbet in the two photos at first glance?

In these moments, the thrill of uncovering chirping camouflaged birds is unparalleled—a testament to nature's mastery of disguise and the joys of keen observation

Notes

1. in addition patience, diligence, one also needs time  to achieve the goal. I can not stop to look for a bird with unfamiliar chirps most of the time due to time constraint 

2.  there are a few apps on cellphone for bird identifications through their calls. I tried the Merlin bird ID twice without any successes, even for cases when Merlin has a specific bird chirps on file.