Episode 28 of "This Birding Life"

Nicole Perretta: The Bird Call Lady

Episode 28 of "This Birding Life" features my interview with Nicole Perretta, also known as "The Bird Call Lady." Nicole can imitate the songs and sounds of more than 130 different bird species and she does it so well that the birds are often fooled themselves.

Her amazing ability to recreate bird sounds has landed her guest interview spots on network TV shows with the likes of Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres.

Acorn woodpecker by Nicole Perretta.

But her talents don't stop there. Nicole is also an accomplished artist. Much of her artwork is used to illustrate her CD collection of bird calls.


This interview with Nicole Perretta was recorded at The San Diego Bird Festival last March. The sound quality is slightly compromised by the fact that we were inside a trade show tent during a rainstorm, with the constant roar of airplanes taking off from the nearby airport. However this does not detract from the amazing bird calls that Nicole throws down during the interview.

I hope you'll give it a listen. As always, every TBL episode is available for free downloading or streaming in both audio only (MP3) and enhanced audio (M4a—sound with still photos). And it's in the iTunes Podcast section, too.

Clean as a Rail

I believe I have discovered the secret of how the light-footed clapper rail keeps its feet so clean. After all, if you made your living striding around in the marsh mud, do you think you could live up to the name "light-footed?"

This sub-species of the clapper rail is found along the Pacific Coast of southern California, south of Los Angeles. It is critically endangered due to a number of factors: habitat loss, increased predation, rising ocean levels, and the effects of pesticides. Efforts to help the species to recover have been fairly successful where there is enough appropriate habitat.

Our "Birds Along the Border" field trip at the San Diego Bird Festival encountered this bird in the salt marshes in a park along San Diego Bay. A handful of us lingered to watch this bird after the rest of the group headed back to the bus and we were rewarded with a nice long view of the rail taking a bath.

Some Birds Along the Border

Anna's hummingbird, male, at Dairy Mart Ponds.

Digiscoped images from my Friday all-day birding field trip along the US/Mexican border. We saw some great birds, including—but not limited to—these.

Looking for the nesting night herons near the sports park ball fields.

A male hepatic tanager in the trees near the ball fields. This guy has been hanging around this coral tree for months.

A peregrine falcon has been roosting on the lights at the ball fields. I wondered if he'd was watching the hepatic tanager, just 50 yards away.

Black-throated magpie-jays are established exotics along the San Diego/Tijuana border. Not countable (yet) but stunners to see.

Sleeping Godwits

Along the Pacific coast, near San Diego, my birding group ran across this flock of sleeping shorebirds. The flock was mostly marbled godwits with a few dowitchers and a willet thrown in.

Our group tallied 100 species in our Birds Along the Border field trip. If you've never attended the San Diego Bird Festival, take it from me, it's a good one! It's amazing how many birds you can find when you've got ocean, freshwater sloughs, mountains, desert, and lush spring vegetation all in abundance.