When I was down in Florida for a little family vacation earlier this month I was awash in new birds. I hadn't been to Florida since I started listing birds so there were all kinds of new birds to see, hear, photograph and learn about. There aren't many places left in the country where I could rack up so many lifers.
Early on in the trip, I realized I could hear a loud bird call that sounded so very familiar. It called over and over again. What on earth was it? Every winter I forget all my bird calls and must relearn them in the spring. My cold addled brain couldn't place it so I moved on. My second day there I heard the call again and trained my bins on a bush expecting to see a familiar bird. What is saw puzzled me momentarily. It was a wren. I didn't recognize it but I figured immediately that it must be a Carolina Wren. This was a bird I was hoping to see down there but to be honest I hadn't bothered to learn the call. It only took a moment to realize why I knew the call. The Carolina Wren is the sound of my wife's alarm clock.
She has this Early bird Tweet sound birdsong alarm clock. It actually combines the call of a Carolina Wren with a woodpecker knocking. It was so funny to make the connection. I hear that thing every morning but because I don't live in an area with Carolina Wrens I never realized what the call was.
~Kirk
3 comments:
Great story!!
Hilarious! I have my outlook email set to bird tweet when I get new messages and every once in a while someone will be visiting our office for a meeting and say "Did you just hear a bird call?"
Nice, I have a similar problem with my phone which has a barred owl ring tone. One of my co-workers has a white-breasted nuthatch call as a ringtone and people are always trying to figure out where it bird is.
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