At an ornithologist conference in may 2010 I met Werner Sykora from
Bad Düben (Saxony, Germany). He´s a guard to protect Beavers
Castor fiber in northwestern saxony and over several years he made
a lot of recordings from the  inside of beaver lodges. In addition it
seems notable that Werner is building most of his equipment by himself.
Please listen to a selection from two “Best of CD´s” he shared, and feel
free to get in contact (oberbiber at web de).

© All recordings by Werner Sykora
Beaver Castor fiber, adult and juvenile, Call
 

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In 2008 I posted a few recordings of Sylvia Warblers with atypical songs.
-> http://biophonie.info/bioacoustics/16-grasmucken-mit-atypischem-gesang/
Please take a look to the following website which handles more consolidated
findings on this topic! http://www.ginster-verlag.de/Raetselsaenger.html

What do you think you hear in this recording?
A clockwork? A model railroad? Or maybe a snake?

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Yesterday we ringed some juvenile Wrynecks Jynx torquilla.
What you can hear is their defense call.
For us it was a really impressive experience to hear and see
this bunch of hissing and clicking young birds in the nest-box.
This defence behaviour is optical remarkable too.
The Wrynecks turn their heads all the time to impersonate a snake.
Combined with the sound it didn´t miss its effect :-)

On Spring 2008 the ornithologist Reinhold Brennecke (Haldensleben, near Magdeburg, Mid-Germany)
told me about a Corn Bunting Emberiza calandra he watched for 3 years, which singing like
a Yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella. At the Forum of “Verein Sächsischer Ornithlogen” (VSO) i read
a report about the same topic. On early summer i visit the described place and had the luck to see and
hear the bird. Actually it was a Corn Bunting (on Dick Forsman´s homepage I read 1 month ago about nearly
grey Yellowhammers!)
While our SINGWARTE camp in June 2008 Marcus Held and I went out to record the singer.
The bird sang 2 different kinds of songs. A nearly equal Yellowhammer and a mixed
Yellowhammer/Corn Bunting song. The mixed one starts with Corn Bunting like short single sounds,
followed by a Yellowhammer part (typical first part double sounds in Yellowhammer song). The song
of our Corn Bunting ends with the typical short Corn Bunting sounds.

Corn Bunting, typical song, 2008:

 

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Corn Bunting, atypical song – mixed one, June 29th, 2008:

 

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Corn Bunting, atypical song – nearly equal to Yellowhammer, June 29th, 2008:

 

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Yellowhammer, typical song, 2008:

 

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Last year a birder from Leipzig pointed me to 2 birds that sing atypical. They were optically identified as Sylvia borin and Sylvia atricapilla. A detailed article was published in the society´s periodical “Mitteilungen des Ornithologischen Vereins zu Leipzig e.V. #14″. Please find the recordings and sonagrams below:

Sylvia atricapilla, typical Song

Sylvia atricapilla, atypical song

Sylvia atricapilla, atypical song

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Sylvia atricapilla, atypical Song

Sylvia atricapilla, atypical Song

Sylvia borin, typical song

Sylvia borin, atypical Song

Sylvia borin, atypical Song

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