Winter Dawn in Mallee Country with Crested Bellbirds
This is an excerpt from a much longer recording of a winter dawn soundscape in semi-arid Mallee country featuring, as main vocalist, the Crested Bellbird (Oreoica gutturalis gutturalis). The sequence of Bellbird song cycles (approximately 63 cycles of song, each containing several repetitions of a particular song pattern) in this recording actually extends for another 21 minutes beyond the end of this recording; but the later cycles were omitted because other species of song birds entered the soundscape much nearer to the microphones and, therefore, predominated much more loudly.
The Crested Bellbird inhabits box-ironbark forest, mulga, mallee and other arid and semi-arid scrubs. It is a ground feeder with an upright stance, large head, and robust black bill, feeding on arthropods amongst leaf litter. Sedentary, territorial, unobtrusive, it likes to keep under cover and sit quietly. It is more often heard than seen. However, its voice is distinctive and melodious. Its song is usually produced by the adult male from a prominent perch. Bird guidebooks often generically describe its call with the onomatopoeic phrase ‘pan pan panella’. This pattern may be followed by a clear ‘plonk’. (When I first heard its song, years ago, not knowing what everyone else called it, I nicknamed it the ‘Morse Code Bird’.) The call does keep to a quite specific general formula, but undergoes very many rhythmic and tonal modifications and variations (probably both individual and regional) – including, as you will hear in this recording, a variety of pitch transpositions. An interesting characteristic of the Bellbird’s call is that it can be quite difficult to discern the precise direction from which the call is being emitted. One bird guidebook aptly describes the Bellbird’s voice as “haunting, ventriloquial”. Indeed, the main motif can often seem to come from a quite different direction than that of the final ‘plonk’, even though both are emitted by the same bird. So, here we have a secretive, creatively melodious, ventriloquist bird, more often heard than seen, that is without doubt one of the magical auditory beauties and joys of the arid yet wondrous Mallee soundworld.
Recommended listening: Good quality headphones with a flat frequency response (preferably open-backed); or good quality stereo monitors. Relaxed deep meditative listening at a quiet time with minimal interference from extraneous noise.
Recorded respectfully and mindfully within the country of the Meru and Danggali people.