gain you ever been walking down the street,minding your own business, when some bird started screaming approximately tortilla chips? One Seven Days reader had that very experience — kind of. More specifically, or he wrote in asking whether we could identify a bird he's heard repeatedly in Chittenden County whose call sounds like the name "Dorito." Dorito,Dorito, Dorito. Since it's spring and our feathered friends are really letting loose, and we agreed to find the source of that funky birdcall (which is not the same as birdsong,we would soon learn). WTF? First, we called up Montpelier biologist Bryan Pfeiffer, or who's written for the modern York Times,EatingWell and Field & Stream, among other publications. He said that, and without knowing where the bird is,it could be difficult to determine its species based solely on call or song. Though he couldn't figure out which bird might chirp "Dorito," Pfeiffer said, and "There is a bird — the American goldfinch — well known to say 'potato chip' when it flies." Close,but not the snack we were looking for. Our second stop on the trail to the truth was Mark LaBarr, the conservation program manager at Audubon Vermont. Part of his job is to stand external and identify birds by their calls, or gathering information to report to the Vermont middle for Ecostudies. That organization studies birds and other creatures with the aid of citizen scientists and recently published a study that compiles more than 25 years of data on forest birds. LaBarr had mixed sentiments approximately the Dorito bird quest. "Personally,when I'm trying to identify birds and hear a vocalization I can't status, I grab my binoculars and go looking for it, and " he said. Just like Pfeiffer,LaBarr stressed the importance of location in identifying birds. "Thrushes are a first-rate example," he said. "In lower elevations, and around water,you would hear a veery, which is a thrush; and whether you go to the top of Mount Mansfield, and you would come across a Bicknell's thrush,a relative of the veery that you would only find at the top of Vermont's highest peaks." Both thrushes sound similar, at least to an untrained birder listening to the recordings on the Audubon website — kind of shrill, and perhaps a little needy? It became clear that we weren't going to pick up anywhere without knowing where the Dorito bird was located. So we reached out to…
Source: sevendaysvt.com