The Quest for Common Pochard

In this, the seventh episode of Wild Bird Acoustics, we follow my quest to record an elusive duck species, Common Pochard. My eventual aim was to field record the species remarkable courtship display, you can follow that journey in the first section of this podcast.  Apart from discussing the challenges of locating and recording this elusive species, I share several other bird recordings captured during these outings, such as the amazing calls of Northern Goshawk, a displaying Little Grebe, singing Goldcrest, and Eurasian Jay mimicking other species' calls.
 Following this initial section, I will take you to the Stockholm Archipelago in late autumn, on a rather special day in November, when all the stars aligned and I managed some wonderful audio of some rather special Swedish bird species....


00:20 Introduction to Wild Bird Acoustics

00:35 The Quest for Common Pochard

01:22 The Challenges of locating breeding Common Pochard

03:40 The final piece of the Jigsaw; Common Pochard's Courtship Display

04:55 Another Journey to Norra Djurgarden

05:06 The Encounter with Common Pochard

06:40 Other Encounters: Coot and Little Grebe

08:43 The Successful Recording of Common Pochard

23:04 A Surprise Encounter with Northern Goshawk

31:16 The Final Recordings and Reflections

32:20 Preview of the Next Episode: Autumn in Landsort

33:20 The Field Magazine: A Day in Landsort

33:40 The Search for Spotted Nutcracker

34:24 Encounters with Bohemian Waxwing and Northern Bullfinch

47:26 Success! An audio recording of Spotted Nutcracker...

53:08 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

Now you're all very welcome once again to Wild Bird Acoustics. I'm your host, Alan Dalton, and I'll be taking you on a journey into sound. 

Now you're very welcome to the next episode. I think this is episode seven of Wild Bird Acoustics  I have a nice show for you today. And the first thing I'm going to do is play a sound magazine for you and this sound magazine is a little bit different to some of the ones I put out before as it's all about my quest for a certain species and that species was common poachered.

Common potchard is a species of duck,  specifically a diving duck species and it's not particularly common anywhere. It will be found in small numbers and generally speaking you see the most in the winter time. 

However, here in Sweden, they breed and you will find them breeding on small, shallow freshwater lakes with plenty of reed cover. 

Now the species as I said is not particularly plentiful and as often happens when you go on a campaign to record a certain species you have no idea where to go and because the species is so local I had to do a lot of research and talk to a lot of boarders about where I might find the species. And that was only the start of the problems.

 They are not easy to track down in spring. They're very, very mobile. And this led me on quite a merry dance over a long period of time. 

Now a lot of time here in Sweden, when I do get out field recording, I would just actively record wherever I come across. So occasionally I'll just go to a certain habitat like woodland or wetland and I will just move around an area and record whatever happens to be singing or calling on that given day.

Now as nice as it actually is, just to putter around the place, just recording whatever you come across, there are certain species which really kind of fill my imagination and certain sounds to me are very iconic now I'll give you an example of a species that really appeals to me and that is black throated diver  And if any of you out there are familiar with loons or divers, their call is quite incredible.

Now Blackthroat the Diver returns to Sweden in late April, and when they return they start to give their car chip display, generally speaking at dawn or in the evening, or sometimes overnight,  for anybody who's ever heard that call, it's easy to see why a sound recorder would be attracted to try and record that species.

It's just a wonderful, wonderful noise. And it is very much a signature noise of the Swedish wilderness. 

So I think it's fairly understandable, you know, that you try and go out there and record that.  Probably a good example of a species that I would spend a lot of time on, in order just to secure audio of such a fabulous call. 

Other species that spring to mind would be black woodpecker, which give amazing calls, but actually have proved very, very difficult for me to record, and I'm still really chasing that species here in Sweden, and I haven't quite got the recording I want of it, 

so that's another species that will keep me busy. No doubt in the future   in a similar manner. You've got species like thrush nightingale, marsh warbler, common rose finch. And these are species that just appeal to me as a border. 

So they're all species I would like to record really, really well. And in many cases I have already done so.  I will be sharing audio of all these species, which you hear at Wild Bird Acoustics. 

 Now you may be wondering why Common Pottered and the simple reason is I had no idea that they had this incredible courtship display until a few years ago when I was on Sino Canto listening to recordings  by various recorders from Sweden, and I came across a fantastic piece of audio of Common Pochard by a gentleman named Lars Edinius, and he is recording in Northern Sweden.

And the audio just blew me away.  And immediately I felt it was something that I would like to get out there and get a really nice clear recording of.

So that's the general basic background into what brought this particular project on.  And one of the net positives of all this kind of activity, when you're out there trying to record a certain species, is invariably you come across other words while you're doing so.

And this was one of those occasions. This actually took me a few years, but during all those outings, looking for common pochard, I came across some wonderful words and some of them will be included in this podcast. 

So again, I think I'm getting a little bit bogged down in the detail and probably the best thing to do at this point is just play you the sound magazine. This is the quest for Common Pottered. 

 Welcome to another Sound Magazine here at Wild Bird Acoustics, folks. And on this occasion, we are going to travel to a place called Norra Jörgarden, and that is found in the suburbs of northern Stockholm City. Although it's in the suburbs, it's quite an amazing area. On this particular morning, I arrived extremely early in pursuit of one species, common potchard.

Now, my efforts to record common potchard actually date back three years now. And the reason I've been trying so hard is, I heard a recording a few years ago of a display in Common Pottyard and I was absolutely blown away by this sound. I just did not expect it from a duck. When they are in full display, the males make this incredible sound.

And that's what I was hoping to record. So for the last couple of spring seasons, I had been moving around looking for a suitable area for common pochard. And it was the species I realized I didn't know an awful lot about. But over the last few years, I've kind of gained a picture of where the species like to breed, how they behave and  This all helped me this year.

Eventually, I was hoping to manage a recording as a result. Now, this species likes to breed in rather small ponds, but they're extremely difficult to pin down in spring. And this is mainly because the females tend to move around a lot, possibly looking at nest sites. And on occasion, the males will follow them around.

Over the last couple of springs, I really had found it was pot luck. And I figured it was just a matter of being there on the right date at the right time. So as I say, I decided to get out early. The 30th of April was quite a good date, I reckon, to get out. And when I first arrived at the first lake, I found just a single male poacher.

And it was completely silent, unfortunately. And I waited for quite a while, hoping that maybe a female would come. But it never happened. And whilst waiting, there was a bit going on on the lake itself. And I did manage to record this territorial dispute amongst three coot.  So anybody who's familiar with freshwater habitats here in Europe will be familiar with coot.

They're quite aggressive in the breeding season  and they're quite noisy. So this is the first recording. And this is common coot in dispute on territory in Sweden. 

So where the coot were displaying, I found just a single male pochard. And it was completely silent, there were no females around. And I watched it for a while, I was kind of hoping that maybe a female would fly in and the bird might start to display. But it just didn't happen. So I decided to move on to a nearby pond called Spiegeldammen.

Now, when I arrived at this pond, I immediately saw there were two males in the centre of the pond. And this was quite encouraging. Even more encouraging was when I looked through the reeds very very carefully, I found no less than four females actually asleep in the reeds. Although they weren't very active and it was still very cold, I decided to wait for a while and eventually one or two of the females became active and a little bit vocal.

So what happened over the next few minutes was these two females took a lap up the pond and the males were kind of Following them around from a distance, but they didn't really stare at the display And then the females although they seemed quite excited they went back to the reed and promptly went back to sleep But I did manage this recording and at the time I was absolutely delighted because I had spent so much time in the field trying to record this species and finally I had got a recording although it was mostly females calling.

So have a listen to this, this is mainly female common pochard calling early in the morning at Spiegeldammen in Sweden. 

Now having put so much effort in to try and track down common pochard over the last two seasons there was no way I was going to let this opportunity slip. So, I had six birds on territory, I had four females and two males in close proximity and there was no way I was moving. So basically, I just camped by the lake for the next few hours and whilst I was waiting for the females to get active, there was a lovely bit of activity going on with little grebe and the result was some nice recordings.

So, first up I'll give you the simple display of Little Grebe, this is quite a short recording and it's a very typical sound of wetlands here in early spring, even though the species is quite a local breeder. So this is the display or song of Little Grebe. 

Now there was a pair of Little Grebe in the area and they were a busy nest building. Eventually as I sat quietly, as is often the case, I started to notice little things going on in the reed beds and around the lake. There was what I presume to be a female little grape, and she was quietly nest building.

And I got quite close to her and just set up the parabola and just sat back. Now this recording is really nice, it's about three and a half minutes long. It begins with the bird, she's just quietly nest building and she's giving these quiet pip calls. Eventually after about a minute the pip calls cease and she starts to give more agitated priya calls.

And at one stage, the male actually answers back with a display from the far side of her.  At that point, she continues with the creak calls, or whale calls as some people call them. And gives a long series of whale calls before finally breaking into a lovely, lovely bit of display. So, I was very, very happy with this recording.

It's by far my best recording of Little Grebe. So, I hope you enjoy this long recording. This is a female Little Grebe at Spiegeldammen, Norrjögarden in Sweden. 

Now 

as wonderful as it was to get that lovely little grey recording, my focus was still very very much on Common Pottard and I was watching them closely.  Now the females were just fast asleep until about 9. 30 in the morning and then the sun started to come up and eventually they started to get a little bit active and as they did so I could see that the two males were actually extremely interested in the foreboards. 

Eventually the four hen pottards the reed bed. And almost immediately the two males started to get quite excited and began to display.  Now after three years trying to get this particular call or song, I was absolutely over the moon and I wasn't going anywhere for the next few hours. And what eventually transpired was the females began to move around the place.

And one of the males in particular, who seemed to be dominant over the other bird, started really hassling and chasing the females around the pond. And occasionally the other male would try and sneak in, and quite often the other bird would chase it away before returning to display. So I spent a lot of time recording the display, and initially they were mainly in the centre of the small pond.

But eventually they moved over to the small corner. behind the reed bed. And this was ideal for me because I was able to move around behind the reed bed, out of view, but extremely close to the birds. So in actual fact, I was only about three or four meters away from the birds as they displayed. And this led to a quite incredible long recording of displaying common pochard. 

Now I don't want to shy away from playing longer recordings to you folks on the podcast. It's a fantastic recording. And to date this year, I think it's certainly my favorite recording. It's just a wonderful, wonderful noise. I think when you hear this, you'll probably realize why I became so fixated on actually getting out to sound the cordless species. 

So here's a long recording of displaying common pochard, two males and four females at Spiegeldammen  in Sweden.  Enjoy this one. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. 

So now I had a fantastic set of recordings of Common Pottered. After three years of effort trying to record a species, I was a very, very happy man, and I decided just to walk back through the forest, and as I was doing so, I heard my first wood warbler of the year in song in the woods, and I made a beeline towards that to try and get a recording.

Now just as I was approaching the bird, another sound rang out through the forest, a really powerful call. And I knew that it was a call of the female northern goshawk.  Now I couldn't quite believe my luck as this was another species I'd wanted to record for years. Although in previous years I had heard Eurasian Jay mimicking this species, as soon as I heard this bird I just knew it was the real deal.

There was a lot of volume and strength to the call and eventually I located the bird. It was a female and she was giving chanting calls and begging calls in the forest. And I assumed she was calling to a male. But I settled down first to record the calls that were coming from the forest at quite close range.

And here's the first recording. It's quite an amazing recording of a female Northern Gushawk. 

Now once again I just stayed in the area for a while and although she wasn't calling continuously she was calling quite often and I managed to record her calling on quite a few occasions. So on this next one you will hear in the background wood warbler as mentioned before but also a half inch in blue tit and again this is female northern gush hawk begging call 

So quite amazing, really, that noise. It was quite a humbling experience seeing this bird, or listening to this bird more particularly. The call was just incredible as it just moved through the woods. A little while later, a male flew in. And in this next recording, you will hear the talk calls of a male northern goshawk.

And he was carrying food for the female. And at this point I realised I was probably fairly close to a nest, or at least a nesting territory. And I decided just to get this recording and then I headed away and left the birds quietly in the forest. Again in the background here you'll hear wood warbler, siskin, goldcrest and coldtip insaw. 

So first of all you will hear in this recording, like I say, the top calls of a male. Gus Hawk arriving and then the female gives chanting calls and eventually the male just dropped off some food. It looked like a J and just disappeared off into the forest.  This is Northern Gus Hawk at Norrjörgarden in Sweden on the 30th of April, 2023. 

Now it's probably a good time to mention that if you're ever out sound recording or birdwatching for that matter, and you do find yourself in close proximity to a nest or suspected breeding site, just be very, very careful. If you feel that the birds look in any way disturbed by your presence or in any way anxious, it's probably a good idea just to move on.

And with some species like goshawk, it's probably best just to move on anyway at that time of the year and always just be mindful of.  You know, giving birds their privacy when they are breeding can be very vulnerable to just disturbance from humans, so it's just something to be mindful of when you're out in the woods in the spring.

Now, just moving on, whilst I was waiting for that bird to call on a number of occasions, I actually realized that there was a goldcrest very, very close to me, and eventually the bird began to sing, and I got a nice recording of the bird. So, this is Goldcrest in full song, also at Norrjorgarden in Sweden on the 30th of April. 

So by, by any stretch of the imagination, it had been quite an incredible morning. This location isn't far from home. It's not somewhere I expected to get an awful lot of fantastic audio.  And mainly I was there just to target Common Pottard. And not only had I succeeded in targeting Common Pottard in display, I'd also nailed Northern Goshawk Down, and  it was quite an incredible morning of sound recording. 

And it wasn't quite over yet, I actually was going back towards the bus stop, and had this group of Jay just cross my path. And as they sometimes do, one of them is given this most extraordinary call, and it gave a lovely flyby and called as it did so. The Raging Jade just makes some incredible noises, so have a listen to this. 

So there you go folks, they are the recordings on a quite incredible morning out in the fields. And you just never know when it's going to happen for you. Like I say, it wasn't too far from home. I didn't expect too much. But it was just one of those days when everything came together nicely. And it just goes to show that you really should get out into the field as often as possible. 

The more hours you spend out there, the more audio you'll get. And the more species you'll just bump into. And  it can be very, very rewarding when it all comes together like it did in this particular morning.  Once again, thanks for tuning in to Wild Bird Acoustics and I hope you enjoyed. The sound magazine. 

 So there you go folks, that was recording Common Patchard here around Stockholm and I just wanted to give you an idea of what it's like sometimes to actually chase a certain species or take on a certain project and it can be very, very rewarding and I really do hope you all enjoyed that sound magazine. 

Next up on wild bird acoustics, we have a lovely in the field magazine for you, and this will take you forward to the autumn period here in Sweden, which is a very special time of year.   

The venue for this in the field magazine is the island of Landsort on the Swedish archipelago and it is located just south of Nynäshamn which is probably about an hour and a half south of Stockholm city  it's an absolutely incredible place to go bird watching.

So all of this audio is dated from early November, 2023. And upon visiting the island on that particular day, I was very surprised by the amount of migrants that were still present on the island. And it led to one of those special days in the field where I actually came across a lot of very interesting birds.

And I also managed to record some lovely audio. 

So once again at Wild Bird Acoustics, this is in the field at Landsort in Sweden.   

  So it's,  it's mid November, and I'm down on Landsort,  which is my primary listening station, just collecting the audio.  It's the end of the year, so I've just taken down the SM Mini Recorder,  and I've decided to go for a nice walk around the island.  My main target, if I can find it, is Nutcracker.  There's been a few birds around this year.

There's a small eruption going on in Sweden, and I know there was one here yesterday.  But it could be quite difficult to find, and perhaps it won't be vulgar, but we'll have a look for it. There's a few birds around, you can probably hear  Siskind there,  the wren in the background.  I've had a few twice, and a nice surprise on the way over was a 1st calendar kitty wake. 

Which is a rarity here, had that on the,  on the ferry on the way over. But what we'll do is we'll have a look around, and  hopefully I'll get back to you soon with some nice recordings. 

And I've just happened across a group of bohemian worksmen here, so I'll try and get a nice recording now. 

So there's quite a few Eurasian Bullfinch,  or rather Northern Bullfinch moving around the island today. And I'm going to try and get a call, a flight call of them now.  There's a couple of small groups moving up and down so I think I'll just wait now at this location.  I should be able to record them for you and that'll be quite nice to hear. 

So that was Northern Bullfinch, which is basically just a subspecies of Eurasian Bullfinch. But as you can hear from that recording, the call is much more trumpeting.  Quite different to birds from the UK and Ireland. And a very nice sound here in November. It's one of the sounds of late autumn.  There's not a lot of birds around but what I have located is a feeding nutcracker and so far it's been completely silent.

The bird seems to be cashing some sort of seeds, I'm not sure, maybe pine seeds. We're just going back and forth between an area of woodland.  And another small area which I'm trying to actually just pin down, because I think it may be vocal, or more likely to be vocal, in the area that it's feeding, rather than the area that's catching food.

But we'll see what happens. Some redpoll moving around now. Well that 

was common redpoll. Lovely sound. Probably about 200 birds in that flock. So, quite a few on the island.  I'll go have a look for that nutcracker now. Now, I've just relocated a group of waxwings. of them.  And they're feeding on hawthorn hips.  You can probably hear them in the background.  I'm going to try and get closer now and then after that.

If I get a recording I'll play it for you. 

So I'm actually much closer now to these Bohemian Waxwings and as you can hear,  the birds are feeding on rosehips.  They're also feeding actually along the tide line here on flies as well. Um, I should get a really nice recording here, so.  This'll be Bohemian Waxwing Landsort, the 13th of November. 

Now as you can probably hear in the background, there's a lot of redpoll here,  and I've seen quite a few flocks today, there's quite a few moving around,  so I'm just going to stop here and try and get a  recording of this flock of feeding common redpoll, also known as mealy redpoll,  quite common here in Sweden, but they're nice birds.

So this is mealy redpoll, or common redpoll, feeding. In der. 

So a little bit of a surprise there. Just had a gray whitetail fly over. It's quite a scary sport here, so I'm quite happy with that.  So I'll see if we've got anything on that. So this would be Gray Whitetail flight call on migration at Lanor on the 13th of November. 

Well, it's been very tough. There's a nutcracker in the area.  As I said earlier, it's going between collecting food and caching it. And it returns to the same general area of woodland every time. I did manage to get some calls.  And that represents the first time I've actually recorded the species, so I'm very happy with that.

Might be a bit of handling noise, but this will be a recording of nutcracker. And it's been wonderful.  Just following this board around, had some nice views, but like I say, it hasn't been terribly vocal, and it's only given a couple of series of calls,  but like I say, it's just great to get the call, and this is Nutcracker, Landsort, Sweden,  on the 13th of November. 

So, as a good habit, Nutcracker just called.  I'm not sure how good the recording is. It was a little bit distant. And there might be a bit of handling noise, but definitely got a recording. 

So, I'm just standing here now. And there's some lovely Northern Bullfinch feeding on some Sycamore seed.  And hopefully get a few quiet calls. They're giving some quiet contact calls. So, I'll try and record that now for you. Some marsh tit in the background as well. 

So there's been pretty good numbers in Northern Belfinch today, I've had at least 50 60 words. So that's it from the small Linfield magazine, it's been a wonderful morning here in Landsort,  Nutcracker the best,  and some wonderful audio of Bohemian Waxwing.  Northern Bullfinch  Common Redpaw  Um, it's always worth getting out to the field as always And I hope you've enjoyed this little section  Right at the end of the autumn here on Landsarth  Been a wonderful morning, bit chilly now and I'm kind of rushing for the ferry  But I'll see you next time when I'm in the field 

  Those of you who have been in contact by email with your feedback, I'd like to thank you very much. And as always here at Wild Bird Acoustics, any feedback is greatly appreciated. And going forward, I hope that it helps streamline the podcast and give listeners what they want to hear.

So always open to suggestions, folks. And don't be afraid to drop me an email at wildbirdacoustics at gmail. com. 

So that wraps up episode seven here at Wild Bird Acoustics. We'll see again in a couple of weeks, folks. 

 So that brings us to the end of another episode of Wild Bird Acoustics, and I hope you've enjoyed it. As always, you can find us on YouTube by simply searching for Wild Bird Acoustics. We do have a mailing list also, and if you want to be part of that, folks, you can drop us an email at wildbirdacoustics at gmail.

com.  Now, all feedback is greatly received here at the podcast, and if you'd like the right review of the podcast. You can do so at the buzzsprout header page. In addition, if you'd like to make a small financial donation to the podcast, you can do so using the buy me a coffee button. And you'll find that also on the buzzsprout header page. 

We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more from Wild Bird Acoustics. Until then, take it easy, folks. And as always, don't be afraid to get out into the field and relax and just listen to the wildlife out there. Maybe even do a little bit of field recording of your own.  We'll talk to you soon, folks. Take it easy.

That's all from Wild Bird Acoustics.