"People's Home Journal Green Meadow Club Bird Sanctuaries Campaigns (1917-1925)," a collection of bird protection-related articles written by Thornton W. Burgess and William T. Hornaday, along with a few illustrations by Harrison Cady. archive.org/details/phj-...

My happy place rn is pop music from late 1960s Japan. youtube.com/playlist?lis...

A Distinct Success as a Bird. Episode 5: Oriole Philology. Just uploaded (also available via Apple podcasts). peteroehlkers.podbean.com/e/episode-5-...

Mid-August Baltimore oriole long song. macaulaylibrary.org/asset/640132...

Article in August issue of Bird Observer. The Blackbirds of Boxford: Early American Wild Bird Advocacy. www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2025/...

Senjōgahara, Oku-Nikkō, Japan.

It is well known that gray catbirds copy the songs of other birds, including Baltimore orioles. But why would this catbird (top) sing the syllables of the oriole song (bottom) in reverse order? #birds #bioacoustics

The image of Japan as a bird-friendly nation influenced 19th century U.S. discourse about bird protection. www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2025/...

Baltimore orioles are thought to have individually unique songs, but some communities share songs. I recorded this song exchange, involving three or four different orioles, three days in a row. #birds #fieldrecording ebird.org/checklist/S2...

Weird ultrasonic specters in my spectrogram. Anyone know what these might be? Daytime recording. Audiomoth. #fieldrecording

Just finished Toshitaka Suzuki's professional memoir 僕には鳥の言葉がわかる [I understand the words of birds], an invitation for everyone to become more "tori-lingual." Especially impressed by the thoughtfulness of his media strategies in trying to spread the word about animal linguistics.

The 27th different Baltimore oriole song I recorded this spring is one of the best. Check out the vibrato. And the jaunty ending. #birds #fieldrecording macaulaylibrary.org/asset/635694...

Listeners to the Trestleton episodes of my podcast may be pleased to know that Lord and Lady Trestleton have returned to the trestle. peteroehlkers.podbean.com/e/episode-2-...

Braved the pollen and went recording this morning, and good thing! The orioles are back, Orchard and Baltimore. The Baltimore I recorded is a veteran male, singing a variation of the dominant song at the property.

Just uploaded, 1916 volume of The Complete Little Stories for Bedtime by Thornton W. Burgess. twbresearchleague.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-...

Wondering exactly where Meaningful Stone (김뜻돌) sourced the soundscape recording for the end of "10AM." American robin/blue jay/northern cardinal/mourning dove could easily be my backyard. youtu.be/DOl6BryH0JQ?...

Took all afternoon, but I finally tracked down this passage by Christopher Gedner (Linné's student) which spuriously introduced a second "Colonial America regrets putting bounties on blackbirds" tale into the entomology literature. The first is this one: wingedwardens.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-...

Oh yellow-bellied sapsucker, you could be in Costa Rica right now, but instead you are here in freezing weather, huddled against a branch of the mountain laurel in front of my house, waiting for the squirrel to get off the suet feeder.

Birdsong identification talk on Japanese TV. "Don't Mejiro (Japanese white-eye) go 'kyuu-kyuu'?" Alice-san chi no Iroribata, Episode 1.

A reference in 鳥たちのフランス文学 has sent me next to Pascal Quignard's Dans ce jardin qu'on aimait, about Simeon Pease Cheney, 19th century American spiritualist birdsong transcriber.

Latest personal translation project arrives from Kinokuniya. French Bird Lit in Japanese. (details in Alt text)

Podcast Episode 4. A two-hour recording of my June 11 kayak trip up the Charles River and back, oriole song indicated in episode description timeline. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Dismal New Year’s morn, but if you listen carefully, you may hear a pair of bluebirds.

"쑥국 쑥국 쑥쑥국 쑥국" is the signature birdsong moment in some contemporary arrangements of the Korean song "새 타령" (Sae Taryeong/Bird Song). I asked Gemini what species it was intended to represent and it scolded me, in Korean, for being too literal-minded.

I will never get used to ruddy turnstones as beach chair scavengers. #birds

At the end of the day, maybe my role in life is to provide fansub-style culture notes for folks who want to understand the bird jokes in "Talentless Takano" (Netflix). #無能の鷹野

And suddenly I have a podcast, about Baltimore oriole songs. I tagged in "Music History" because that's what it is. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

Immediately identifiable sound signature

Fourth installment of The Complete Little Stories for Bedtime by Thornton W. Burgess, this time covering the year 1915. twbresearchleague.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-...

I gasped when I saw that my AudioMoth had fallen to the forest floor, face down. Turns out that this had the positive effect of filtering out traffic noise, while the higher frequency sounds still got through. And so the sounds of newly fledged oriole chicks and their anxious parents were preserved.

The chicks in the Baltimore oriole nest I've been monitoring have fledged. But are making two different calls. Checked the juvenile BAOR songs in the Macaulay database and, as with adults, there appears to be significant diversity in the way very young members of the species vocalize.

Today's Baltimore oriole nest footage. Nestlings are still quite young, not as noisy as they will be. Both adult birds are identifiable by their songs. A third bird (rival male) sings from off stage. #birds youtu.be/tHLQ7-Xj5lU

Oh no, I've been spotted #birds

Today's birdsong recording method

Current set up to record oriole nest sounds. Old steel trestle column provides a convenient mount for parabolic mic.

Is there a prayer I can say to keep my #audiomoth safe now that I've left it all alone in the woods?

Have you ever heard a Baltimore oriole scream? (a grackle was threatening her babies)

Original swan boat #birds

Today is a Cape May warbler while doing yard work kind of day.

And then two different Baltimore orioles singing new stripped-down versions of the property's primordial song. Call them BAOR 03 and BAOR "03."

Today, another veteran Baltimore oriole returned (his song dating back to 2021). Call him BAOR 02. (Spectrogram below includes a little bit of red-winged blackbird song.)

Back (a little early) for the fourth year in a row, this year's "BAOR 01".

Welcome back, orchard oriole! #birds

Daytime owl. #birds

Bluebirds on the defensive. The tree swallows are coming. #birds

I made a pilot episode of "14,998 Bedtime Stories by Thornton W. Burgess" as a proof of concept, and uploaded to archive.org so my sister could hear it. Somehow other people found it. So I thought I might as well note its existence here. More to come. Comments welcome. archive.org/details/1499...

There's nothing like an amped-up late golden-crowned kinglet, singing like crazy and chasing the titmice around.

All at once! FOY tree swallows, eastern phoebe, field sparrow!

White-tailed tropicbirds (AKA long tails), Blue Hole Park, Bermuda. #birds

Great Kiskadee, Grotto Bay Beach Resort, Bermuda. #birds