When is a branch not a branch? by lightbrigade

Grammy Award winning musician Nancy Rumbel talks with Seattle radio station KPLU about her new project that was inspired by the Common Potoo.

Nancy Rumbel created the theme to BirdNote which is a program that airs every morning on KPLU. KPLU describes BirdNote as:

a radio series about the intriguing ways of birds. We hope BirdNote will take you out of the daily grind and transport you into the natural world. Each show is scheduled to coincide with the time of year when you can see or hear the featured bird.

BirdNote shows are two-minute vignettes that incorporate the rich sounds of birds with stories that illustrate the interesting—and in some cases, truly amazing—abilities of birds.

You can also hear BirdNote on other radio stations across the country or just listen to BirdNote episodes on their web site. They also have an RSS feed and Facebook page so you can be notified of new shows.

Nancy’s connection to BirdNote helped create the Common Potoo project. Nancy tells KPLU’s Kirsten Kendrick how it all began:

Well, Chris Peterson, who is the woman who created BirdNote, is also a flute player and she loves music and she knew that I loved the ocarina and I’m on the board of BirdNote. So, she had been back to Cornell, she heard this bird and she said ‘Nancy, I want you to do a piece about the Common Potoo!’ And, so, that’s kind of where it started from.

So Nancy used her ocarina to recreate the sound of the Common Potoo and appears to almost perform a duet with the actual bird in her song. In the video below, she walks through how she created the musical piece.

The sound of the Common Potoo is unique, but so is its ability to blend in with its environment! See our previous post where David Attenborough shows us the amazing camouflage of the Common Potoo.