Birds In Texas (Austin: snakes, places, famous)

[sberdrow]

Hi, this is a wierd question, but when I moved to austin, I noticed that the birds were alot louder. One bird in particular kind of sounds loud, kind of like a rattle sound. I have not heard that bird up north. Almost sounds like a rattle snake. You can really hear them on warm days. Just curious

[AustinTraveler]

Welcome to the wonderful world of grackles. The big black (actually blue) ones are the males. The smaller brown ones are females (or babies). They are very cocky and very loud, to say the least.

[sberdrow]

Originally Posted by AustinTraveler

Welcome to the wonderful world of grackles. The big black (actually blue) ones are the males. The smaller brown ones are females (or babies). They are very cocky and very loud, to say the least.

thanks for the info, I saw plenty of those birds on my patio. When I first got to austin, I thought I was hearing rattle snakes

[Phisch]

Huh. I thought the cicadas were making that sound!

Well, I'm off to hunt for a web site that can give me a good guide to the flora and fauna of Austin.

[love roses]

I was gonna go with cicadas too. We call them heat bugs. They also rattle and loudly too.

[sberdrow]

Originally Posted by Phisch

Huh. I thought the cicadas were making that sound!

Well, I'm off to hunt for a web site that can give me a good guide to the flora and fauna of Austin.

I just look it up and you are right. I found a site that let me play back audio of the cicadas, and it the villian. I hate those things. They are super loud, and make me unsettled.

[sberdrow]

Here it is....ugly loud little monster

[Phisch]

Well, I'm probably odd one out but I like the sounds they make. Are they seasonal around here? The ones I remember when I was growing up came around every seven years or so.

[equus007]

they are supppose to be on a 17 year cycle but Austins weather means that we will usually have some every year. This is their big year though so expect it to last until around halloween. If you want to have some fun start collecting their skins and place them in strategic places for your friends to find.

[Trainwreck20]

Each 'family' of Cicadas have different cycles. The most famous is the 17-year cycle in the midwest-eastern part of the US. In this area, I think there are several 'families' that have short cycles and are offset from each other, so we tend to have irregular years with and without cicada.

From wiki:

Most cicadas go through a life cycle that lasts from two to five years. Some species have much longer life cycles, e.g. the Magicicada goes through a 17- or occasionally 13-year life cycle. These long life cycles are an adaptation to predators such as the cicada killer wasp and praying mantis, as a predator could not regularly fall into synchrony with the cicadas. Both 13 and 17 are prime numbers, so while a cicada with a 15-year life cycle could be preyed upon by a predator with a 3- or 5-year life cycle, the 13- and 17-year cycles allow them to stop the predators falling into step.