We moved house in December, I (stupidly) hoped that we would leave the one-note tui behind. No. The tui down here (5 mins from our old house) are copying the plovers (my layperson's conclusion), who screetch a one note yipe yipe yipe at dusk. So it is still a monotone, 1 note call but higher pitched, faster and more staccato. We have also in the last couple of days gained a "tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock" 2 toned broken record bird, who has actually chosen the tallest tree at the back of the bush on OUR property and is doing it all day. Like ALL day. It's out there doing it as I write.
I now feel like a. cutting the tree down, b. killing the bird or c. killing myself. Most likely I'll just end up in a lunatic asylum.
I think the bulk of my frustration comes from NEVER reading anywhere about this phenomena. That tui are wonderful, yes, but that they can also drive you nuts if they get stuck in one of these broken record cycles of only 1 or 2 notes. The overwhelming majority of information about tui is all about how lovely, wonderful, hauntingly beautiful their calls are and how intelligent they are, yet what we are experiencing is the complete opposite of that.
I've recorded these latest incarnations of monotonous horror. Hopefully you people can hear them through these Dropbox links:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nprssgcksyc2n ... 1.m4a?dl=0https://www.dropbox.com/s/5sdw26jzmq1y4 ... s.m4a?dl=0