Golden whistler
Chapter 10: More birds! More Sounds!
Subchapter: More birds! More Sounds!—Australia
From page 170 in the book.
What's not to like about a bird named a "whistler," whether of the "golden" (this bird) or the "rufous" kind (next bird)? What I find so striking in the songs of this bird, in addition to the stunning purity of the notes, is the similarity of these golden whistler songs to the whipcrack songs of the whipbird. The whipbird above (♫726) had (at least) three different whipcrack songs in his repertoire, and so does this whistler, distinguishable in part by the frequency of the introductory ee ee ee ee ee ee notes.
Here are two 21-minute selections, in addition to the extracted whipcrack songs, from the same individual.
♫727. Twenty-one minutes of fine listening. November 1, 2007. Goomburra Section of the Main Range National Park, Queensland. (21:12)
♫728. Nine songs extracted from the above, consisting of three renditions of each of three different songs, all what I am calling whipcrack songs, rather similar to those of the eastern whipbird. Compare these whipcrack songs to those of the actual whipbird in ♫726. Coincidence? Chance convergence? Mimicry? I don't know. (0:49)
♫729. More fine listening. Does he do anything new in these additional 21 minutes? A rufous fantail (see below) commandeers the microphone after 18 minutes. (21:12)