Not long ago, I went out in the woods in Oregon with this bird expert, Noah Stricker, looking

at birds. Every day he goes up for at least an hour, often it's a lot more, on trails around

his house that he and his parents cleared back when he was a kid.

And I'd never been birding.

I had no idea how much a bird watching, you're actually just listening for the birds.

When we sit out in the morning, it's still foggy. actually just calling just behind me.

That chchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchch, was a California quail waking up?

Did you hear that little? That was the sound of a Stellars J imitating a red-tailed hawk.

Wait, you know the birds well enough,

you can tell when a bird is imitating another bird badly?

Yeah, it's not a real red-tailed hawk. Steller's Jays are just kind of bullies in general and they imitate red-tailed hawks.

As far as I can tell, just to terrorize other little

birds in the forest. Does it work? I don't know, honestly. What's weird

about this is, if NOAA can tell that it's not a red-tailed

hawk and he's not even a bird. Can't other birds tell? If they can, why would

Steller J keep doing it?

To answer that question, Noah tells me about how a couple years ago,

he bought this powerful microphone, a parabolic microphone,

that capture bird sounds from a great distance.

The first bird I ever aimed it at was a Steler J sitting up on a branch.

So he turned on his recorder, put on headphones, and waited for it to make some noise.

And I realized it was sitting up there with its beak closed singing a very quiet whisper

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