I've heard back from Magnus Robb on the first-winter (presumed male) Rustic Bunting I had on 12th October on Cape Kaliakra. I saw the bird well but briefly and sadly wasn't able to get a photograph and failed to locate it despite hours of searching.
However as usual, at the time, I had my sound recorder on recording passively and when I saw the bird I could see it was calling and could hear it too. When I processed the recordings later I certainly had a ticking bird but I wasn't sure how to confirm it was the Rustic or one of the 200+ Song Thrush that were also on the Cape that day and calling. Original recording HERE and below.
I tried some analysis myself last night and the sonogram looked like a tick as well as sounding like one with a shorter arm at the start of the inflection. On Song Thrush it looks more like an inverted tick and also the top of the tick has a higher frequency and the sonogram is also more needle like.
However I wasn't certain as my sonograms were not as sharp as I needed so indeed it was time to send it to Magnus for some guru analysis and this was his reply:
Yes you definitely have a Rustic Bunting in the recording. Attached are sonagrams of the first four calls, after which it continues but is much fainter. Song Thrush can show a V-shaped call of similar duration but the descending side of the V will always be stronger than the ascending side, fading out before it reaches the initial high frequency again. In this bird the right side is always stronger and ends at a higher frequency, very typical of Rustic. Nice one!
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