Robins are the most common of all thrushes found in the US. Often associated with the first sign of spring, many of them actually spend the entire year in one place. Growing bushes near your home that have fruits and berries will help hungry robins through the winter. This lilting robin ringtone will give you a musical reminder of spring all year round.
As you can hear in this ringtone, with the deepest of all goose voices, the Canada Goose has a distinctive look and is found all over North America, the UK and Northern Europe. Some birds stay in one place all year (like your local golf course maybe?) and some migrate between breeding grounds and wintering areas. Birds who are not breeding often go to a safe northerly place to molt.
With their bright yellow breasts and beautiful “V” necklace, it’s hard to believe meadowlarks are members of the blackbird family. There are two species of meadowlarks – eastern and western – and they are very difficult to tell apart. That is, until they sing. Both have beautiful songs, but very different. The Western Meadowlark has a beautiful complex fluty song; and his Eastern counterpart….a lovely song but a little simpler. Meadowlarks are grassland birds, and Western Meadowlarks can be found in mixed flocks feeding on the ground in the mid-west and western US; Eastern Meadowlarks in the mid-west and eastern US and into Mexico and northern South America. Their territories only occasionally are shared and they rarely hybridize. Both nest in Canada and in the northern US – on their respective sides of the continent! Males in both species of meadowlark have two mates.
This vocal songbird is notable for the male's bright red epaulettes and distinctive song. Found liberally throughout the US in marshy and agricultural areas, the flashy males are polygamous and may have many females with nests throughout their territory. But, not all the chicks from these females are his - many are by males from adjacent territories! Get the red-winged blackbird ringtone for your cellphone.
Sandhill Cranes are very tall birds that are gray overall with a beautiful red crown. They form large flocks in the winter and forage for grains along the grasslands and wetlands of the southwest. Congregations of over 500,000 cranes occur along the Platte River in Nebraska in February and March. They also spend much of January in the southwest from Texas to California. Their common name comes from the Sandhills of Nebraska, which is considered to be their most important stopover point during migration. Their distinctive bugling call can be heard up to two miles away!