Comments on: Hearing Birdsong

By: Frank Correnti

Frank Correnti — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:19:54 +0000

Kate, On my laptop I could hear from 200 HZ to 10000 Hz. Mostly, the extremes were faint.

By: sharon leadbitter

sharon leadbitter — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:39:18 +0000

Being a musician (among other things) I’ve learned that my hearing is so important. I went right to the lowest and could hear the first 4 or 5 tones and then the next 2 were more of a “feel” …. same with the highest … I could feel the low in the chest and those high tones really made my sinuses itch … seriously …. (and kinda funny as well)

By: Kem

Kem — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:08:57 +0000

Yes! Mystery solved! It definitely sounds like a mourning dove. Thank you so much!

By: Kate St. John

Kate St. John — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:01:26 +0000

If you're hearing the bird during the day it's probably a mourning dove. Their song is "Hooo-ooo? hooo hooo hooo" Try the first two recordings at this link: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mourning_Dove/sounds If at night and the hoo-ing is syncopated (uneven length & stress) and it is very low-pitched it is probably a great-horned owl: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/sounds My bet is the mourning dove.

By: Kem

Kem — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:49:33 +0000

I’ve been meaning to ask you this for awhile and this post reminded me.

I live in Sq. Hill. For the last few weeks around dusk and dawn, my husband and I have been hearing a bird that goes “hoo hoo hoo”. We’d love to know what kind of bird makes this call, but hours of searching Google and bird calls on Youtube haven’t yielded any good answers. I even tried looking up types of birds that live around Pittsburgh so that I could look up their calls on Youtube, but I’ve been having trouble finding even this information. I’m completely stuck and don’t know where else to ask except this blog.

Any thoughts on what this “hoo hoo hoo”ing bird might be would be greatly appreciated. My husband suspects that it’s an owl, but I didn’t think owls lived around here.

By: Steve Gosser

Steve Gosser — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:12:27 +0000

Very interesting Kate! I have been told all my life I have very sensitive hearing so I had to try this out myself. While Listening on a computer with really bad speakers my low range was the same as your at 100Hz but I actually could hear the first couple seconds of the 15,000Hz. When I plugged in my good earphones I could hear all the tones down to the 40Hz. Having better earphones / speakers definitely made a difference especially for the lower tones.

By: Kate St. John

Kate St. John — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:23:45 +0000

Very good point, David. I’d forgotten about that! Though I work for a TV & radio station I’m not an audio engineer so I don’t think about speaker capacity.

By: David_in_Mich

David_in_Mich — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:03:58 +0000

Some of what you hear will depend on what you are listening with, won’t it? My desktop speakers can barely reproduce 60hz, and I doubt they reproduce real high stuff all that well, so I won’t hear those tones either. I need to dig out some good headphones….