Expert: Julia Booth - 1/20/2009

Question
QUESTION: I would like to ID a bird that is found in Santa Barbara, CA. Unfortunately, I do not have a physical description to share with you. I can tell you that this bird sings a beautiful song in the early morning hours well before sunrise. I know that this isn't much to go on. Thanks for your time.

ANSWER: I'm afraid I'm going to need a little more to go on than that. You're near the coast, so that kind of throws in a few more possbilities than just the normal songbirds.

What kind of song is it? Is it the same thing, being repeated over and over, or does it vary?

Are the notes bubbly, flowing, high-pitched, sharp?

Anything else you can tell me will help.

Julia

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Sorry about the lack of information, Julia. Here are a few more pieces bits and pieces. The time of year most notably for this birdsong is in the spring. Mornings in the spring are usually cool owing to the marine layer which quickly burns off later in the day. The area is heavily vegetated. Here is the geographical location on Google Maps by way of tinyurl.com:

http://tinyurl.com/7nsncr

As for the song, I can only describe it as melodious. It may be that they sing in the day, but the area in question in relatively quiet.

Remzi  

Answer
Well that narrows it down to about 200 species. Seriously, though. You say spring, which means it's probably related to mating. It's a male, trying to attract a female.

I can give you about a dozen well educated guesses, of birds that are likely to be found in your area, in the month of January as well as the spring, and that sing alone, at dawn. You can go to enature.com and listen to sound bytes and see if any match. Wikipedia also has sound files for most North American bird species.

I put a star by the ones I think are most probable. But you should check them all. If none are these are it, let me know and we'll go from there.

White-Crowned Sparrow*
White-Throated Sparrow
Golden-Crowned Sparrow
Song Sparrow*
Bewick's Wren*
Say's Phoebe
Western Bluebird*
Western Meadowlark
Savannah Sparrow
Wrentit
Warbling Vireo
Marsh Wren
Hermit Thrush