Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Madrona Marsh Torrance California 238-1
"It’s often the gnatcatcher’s twangy, whining call—like a miniature banjo being tuned—that alerts us to its presence. Its song is a sputtering, wheezy, petulant-sounding jumble, punctuated by mews. The blue-gray gnatcatcher has been recorded mimicking other species, a talent not widely appreciated, perhaps because its high, whispery voice is beyond the hearing register of many bird watchers. "
Birdwatchersdigest.com
"C. J. Maynard (1896) immortalized it in this beautiful passage:
I heard a low warbling which sounded like the distant song of some bird I had never heard before. . . . And nothing could be more appropriate to the delicate marking and size of the tiny fairy-like bird than this silvery warble which filled the air with sweet, continuous melody. I was completely surprised, for I never imagined that any bird was capable of producing notes so soft and so low, yet each one given with such distinctness that the ear could catch every part of the wondrous and complicated song. I watched him for some time, but he never ceased singing, save when he sprung into the air to catch some insect.
Other observers and writers, however, do not seem impressed by its beauty. F. H. Allen writes that the song of this species is "scrappy, formless, leisurely, and faint, and is delivered somewhat in the manner of a Vireo while the bird flits about among the branches. [He] found the phrase pirrooeet occurring frequently in it." A. A. Saunders regrets that he cannot describe the song in detail, since his collection of sound records "contains only a few fragments from a single bird. The song is long continued, of greatly varied rapid notes and trills, on a high pitch, and of a squeeky or nasal quality. It is more curious than beautiful."
Birds by Bent
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Madrona Marsh Torrance California 238-1
"It’s often the gnatcatcher’s twangy, whining call—like a miniature banjo being tuned—that alerts us to its presence. Its song is a sputtering, wheezy, petulant-sounding jumble, punctuated by mews. The blue-gray gnatcatcher has been recorded mimicking other species, a talent not widely appreciated, perhaps because its high, whispery voice is beyond the hearing register of many bird watchers. "
Birdwatchersdigest.com
"C. J. Maynard (1896) immortalized it in this beautiful passage:
I heard a low warbling which sounded like the distant song of some bird I had never heard before. . . . And nothing could be more appropriate to the delicate marking and size of the tiny fairy-like bird than this silvery warble which filled the air with sweet, continuous melody. I was completely surprised, for I never imagined that any bird was capable of producing notes so soft and so low, yet each one given with such distinctness that the ear could catch every part of the wondrous and complicated song. I watched him for some time, but he never ceased singing, save when he sprung into the air to catch some insect.
Other observers and writers, however, do not seem impressed by its beauty. F. H. Allen writes that the song of this species is "scrappy, formless, leisurely, and faint, and is delivered somewhat in the manner of a Vireo while the bird flits about among the branches. [He] found the phrase pirrooeet occurring frequently in it." A. A. Saunders regrets that he cannot describe the song in detail, since his collection of sound records "contains only a few fragments from a single bird. The song is long continued, of greatly varied rapid notes and trills, on a high pitch, and of a squeeky or nasal quality. It is more curious than beautiful."
Birds by Bent