sgeoff

I've been trying to track down the lesser coucals in the hillsides behind Tai Peng on Lamma, but what I believe to be them does not sound like this, but more like a tree frog call.

By the way, are there any good archives of bird calls available for this region?

sgeoff

I went to check out the lesser coucals this afternoon, and I found that there was indeed a sound rather like your recording in their repertoire.  About 5 or six of these coos before the more typical higher pitched frog-like syncopated call of "gu-guk gu-guk" again about 5 or six times.  Others calling did not have the softer coo, only single higher pitched "guk-guk-guk" calls.

Of course all these representations of sound are a bit meaningless to anyone who does not have the memory of the calls in mind - it would be great to have some recordings.  When I have a bit more time I'd love to get into sound recording of bird calls more seriously.  Anyone have any tips on websites or discussion groups on bird sound recording and suitable equipment?

sgeoff

There are a number of clips of the lesser coucal in the Macaulay Library of Cornell University available on-line:

http://www.animalbehaviorarchive.org/assetSearchInterim.do