13. The “double-strike” of sapsuckers.
2. Birds and Their Sounds
Mechanical (non-vocal) sounds
From page 25 in the book.
The "double-strike" of sapsuckers. Unable to hear the "doublestrike" of the sapsucker's bill after the introductory roll? Sounds like just one strike to you? I admit it sounds like one strike to me also, but there is a way to hear it better. Give this a try: Import into Raven Lite (see book page 3) one of the yellow-bellied sapsucker recordings (the best is ♫72) so that you can now at least see the double strike, the bill actually hitting the substrate twice in rapid succession. The second strike is not so loud, but it's clearly there and not merely an echo of the first. Now, instead of playing the drum in the normal fashion, play it backwards. The softer "second" strike is now audible before the loud "first" strike. It's as if our ears are programmed to interpret a second softer sound as an irrelevant echo of the first, so we hear only the first and dismiss the second. Playing other bird sounds backwards offers great entertainment in dull moments!