Is there a bird that sounds like "Pew. Pew pew. Pew."

April 23, 2021 9:09 AM

There was a flock of little birds in the tree outside my window that were saying "Pew. Pew pew. Pew pew. Pew" to each other as they were hopping around the branches. It was hard to get a look at them but they were very small and I think brown, grey, and maybe with yellow or green. Their vocalizations were as if they were speaking to each other but only had one word, which was Pew (as in the sound a laser gun makes), as opposed to singing a song or yelling.

I'm in the Bay Area/Northern California. I have 2 different bird identification apps (Merlin & Audobon) and none of the sample calls they suggested were it. I think these guys live nearby and visit every couple of days.

Side question, is there a better app for this? The last time I had a bird ID question the apps were also completely useless. I also tried googling "What bird sounds like pew pew" and none of those suggestions were them either. The top 2 suggestions were Lyrebird which is Australian and Tufted Titmouse which seems to have a 2 note call and my friends only ever do the 1 note. Pew! Pew pew! Pew!

posted by bleep to Home & Garden (24 answers total)

Cardinals go PEW PEW PEW. Females and juveniles are not red.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:15 AM on April 23, 2021 [7 favorites]

I have a tufted titmouse at my feeder every day and it definitely sounds like it's saying "pew! pew!" My kids even joke about how it sounds like he's pretending he has a laser gun. I just pulled it up on Merlin and none of the sounds it has for the tufted titmouse match the sounds I've watched him make while sitting on a feeder, but I've found Merlin great for visual identification.
posted by SeedStitch at 9:17 AM on April 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

I find it's usually best to search for things like "small brown birds of Northern California" and then look at pictures, so you aren't getting things like cardinals and lyrebirds which don't live there.
posted by The otter lady at 9:20 AM on April 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

I'm down in LA and we have Bewick's wrens that do exactly this. It's not the "Bewick's wren song" that you can google, but when they travel in groups in and out of our bushes, they go pew pew pew.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:25 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Sounds like cedar waxwings to me based on the behavior, size, location, and colors.

Also they are both fairly common but somewhat less known, so lots of people see them and think: hey what is this cute bird I don't know?
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:41 AM on April 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

It's not an identification site, but I find xeno-canto useful when I have a candidate ID for a noisy mystery bird and want to listen to a variety of recordings in hopes of a match. I'm based in the UK, but the site is global; they've got 57401 recordings from 811 species in the US.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:29 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Dark-eyed Junco? Listen to "calls", not "songs".
posted by Seeking Direction at 10:32 AM on April 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

Oh, and you’d have the “Oregon” subspecies in your area, which has both brown and gray.
posted by Seeking Direction at 10:36 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

BirdNET is an app that lets you record the actual bird you're hearing and upload the sample to get an ID. The interface is a bit wonky, but I've been able to get results from birds that were easily 30 feet away.
posted by hydrophonic at 10:43 AM on April 23, 2021

Bushtits? Listen to their calls, particularly the 4th clip (the one labeled New Mexico) and see if that's anything like what you heard.

If you listen to calls from any of the birds suggested here and they aren't right, if you can describe how they aren't right (too quiet, too fast, etc.), that might help us come up with alternative guesses. Also, can you describe what kind of tree it was, how high up they were, what the surrounding habitat is like, etc.?
posted by Redstart at 11:06 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

So usually id’ing birds by ear involves training yourself using recordings of possible birds so that when you hear something you can be like ‘ah the Western Warlock. I recognize it by its triple knock followed by a high pitched squawk’ or ‘oh right “free beer” means one of the flycatchers’.

Recognizing songs using AI is actually pretty tricky. There’s a method of sampling bird calls that’s just a recorder in the woods set to go off at set times. But when we pull them in to get the species and number, we hire someone to listen to all the calls and songs* I can get ‘recogonizers’ for some species which are code that matches the spectrograph of songs but they are location-specific. Birds here on the East Coast have different accents than those in the center or west of the continent, within species. So you often have to make your own local ‘recognizers’. Plus background noise is a whole issue that’s def not solved. For us, it’s about equal time-wise to have someone do it by ear compared with what we’d have to do to automate the process. All that to say, no there isn’t an app that’s used for this by serious birders.

*One reason you might be having issues finding a recording is that calls and songs are different and much id is based on song. That’s the more complex, flowery notes that are mainly/often used by males in breeding season to attract females and claim territories. Calls are much simpler (like your pew) and used as contact calls or alarm and can even be used across species. So check calls

How I id an unknown bird assuming you got a good look and/or picture
-what’s the general shape and size? That’s going to get me to a broad group like sparrows or warblers or flycatchers. You can do some of this by absolute size but like sparrows and warblers are similar is size but different in body shape. Sparrows are chunky and warblers are a bit more delicate. Flipping through a bird book helps to get these ‘gists’

-behaviour including location - This is your ‘hoping around in trees’ bit. Lots of birds would rather hop on the ground (lots of sparrows) or don’t hop at all (robins). Also in a group narrow it down too. Something that I see a lot that is just the epitome of ‘hopping in trees’ are kinglets.

-check the bird guide or app - I looked up kinglets and they are in your area (I actually saw my first kinglets in El Cerrito as a bunch of birds hopping around in a bush so I’m biased in my guess). The Golden-crowned sounds a bit more like pew to me but I’m not sure.

Another one you could check would be Lesser Goldfinch. Also small, hoppy, group bird.
posted by hydrobatidae at 11:08 AM on April 23, 2021 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: Yeah a lot of the unsuitable calls sound kind of like little chips or twits, or sometimes they are multi-note, or sometimes they come out like machine gun noises like TWIT TWIT TWIT TWIT TWIT. But it really just sounds like people talking:
Bird 1: Pew. Pew?
Bird 2: Pew pew.
Bird 3: Pew. Pew. Pew!
posted by bleep at 11:11 AM on April 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Context is an urban/suburban neighborhood.
posted by bleep at 11:12 AM on April 23, 2021

Maybe yellow-rumped warblers? Make sure you listen to the calls and not the songs.
posted by umwhat at 11:56 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have these critters in my bushes and trees. I believe they're bushtits. They're very hard to see and often come in rather large groups of more than a dozen, so it's a lot of chattering.

I find they make a sound like a bunch of peeps (chicks) but that audobon link has something more metallic like a pew sound.
posted by typetive at 12:28 PM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Maybe Pygmy nuthatches? Check out the first and second “Calls” files here (both Colorado, one from 2008 and one from 2019). I love these guys.
posted by bananacabana at 2:00 PM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yeah so far these all sound too rapid fire. They were just making one sound at a time. I'll see if I can make a video if they come back.
posted by bleep at 2:43 PM on April 23, 2021

I am in D.C. and hear that right now. I have no idea of what the bird is.

My cardinals say, ”Fip! Fip!” in short syllables.

They all sound louder than usual.
posted by jgirl at 4:36 PM on April 23, 2021

Maybe house finch? Females and immature males are brownish and nondescript.
posted by Redstart at 7:25 PM on April 23, 2021

Could they have been chestnut-backed chickadees? They make a bunch of different sounds, but scroll down all the samples on this page and listen to the one second from the bottom that was recorded in Oregon on May 7, 1989. It fits your description pretty well.
posted by wondermouse at 7:28 PM on April 23, 2021

I was coming in to say "bushtit", but Redstart beat me to it. You can also submit your question to the FB page "Nor-Cal Birding" to access some region-specific expertise. It's a very active site.
posted by eleslie at 3:20 AM on April 24, 2021

If they're bushtits or kinglets (another small bird that looks like a million other small birds) they can be hard to spot. I just call them "peep-peeps" because they blend in and hide.
Identifying birds by song can be very hard. I spent months trying to ID a bird I kept hearing but never seeing until I got lucky and actually saw one make the sound (northern flicker territory call). So don't give up, you might get a good clear photo and be able to make an ID.
posted by fiercekitten at 9:18 AM on April 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

A modification to my answer above - the Merlin App for bird id just released an update that does sounds! I haven’t used it but I’m about to (still have to do them the hard way for work).
posted by hydrobatidae at 5:12 PM on June 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Update: It was Black Phoebe and it came back today!
posted by bleep at 4:53 PM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]