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"Towhee."
"Red-bellied woodpecker."
"Cardinal."
"I hear an American crow."
"Yep."
"That's a robin singing."
"A ruby-crowned kinglet is singing off to my right," says Pippen. He explains to a less accomplished companion, "It's a long song. It starts off with a really long, thin tzee-tzee-tzee, and then goes into a long jumble of sound."
After awhile, the forest goes silent. Cook pauses on a wooden bridge where the hillside drops off and some treetops are at eye level, throws his head back slightly, and begins whistling—a low, warbling, eerie sound that mimics the song of an eastern screech-owl. Within thirty seconds, the surrounding trees are filled with the sound of singing and chattering birds.
"Oh! Ovenbird," Pippen and Cook shout almost simultaneously. A brownish bird with black streaks on a white breast scolds from a nearby branch and flies off.
Just as quickly as they arrived, the songbirds depart, and then in the distance is a sound surprisingly similar to Cook's whistling. Both birders are elated. As Pippen explains later, Cook's screech-owl imitation drew a flock of small birds intent on driving the predator from their territory. When a real screech-owl responded to Cook's call, the pack of songbirds went after it for the same reason.
The ovenbird is a relatively new spring arrival. A return visit to the Shepherd Trail a few weeks later yields a cornucopia of migrating birds: northern parula, red-eyed vireo, scarlet and summer tanagers, American redstart, rose-breasted grosbeak, and hooded warbler.
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