Laura Erickson's For the Birds

I don’t know that I’ve ever noticed this little gulping wink call by Evening Grosbeaks before. I watched two different females give it, but just because I didn’t notice any males give it doesn’t mean they don’t. A bird close to the recorder must have made four of these. You can see them at the bottom of the sonagram, too.

My friend Ryan Brady has noticed this call before, he thinks in the context of a disturbance or danger. That would be consistent with my birds–a Merlin flew by several times the morning I was recording, and this particular excerpt was made during the time the Merlin passed back and forth, when all the grosbeaks stopped their normal calling.