Some weeks ago I got to see a Bienteveo.
This tiny friends migrate all the way from Venezuela and spend spring around here. They love coffee and other seeds we have and if you visit the mountain zones and have a bit of luck you might hear them. If you get a miracle, you might even see them. They are so puny and so camuflageable that it’s nearly impossible to catch sight of them when they hang so high in trees.
The day I got my little miracle I woke to the song of the Bienteveo.
His spoken song, in a soft rhythmic melody was the sweetest thing ever. Later that morning I went outside determined to see the little guy and after about half an hour searching for him in a gigantic Ficus tree, I found him. Because someone else pointed him out. Otherwise I’m pretty sure I could’ve stayed there the whole day and not see him. The good part was that after I saw him once, I could find him again, even when he moved, which he did more times than he should have. He was totally playing me.
I only had my cell phone with me, and in any normal situation it’s camera would have sufficed, but in this particular case it was futile to try a picture. I would have got the tree and then never find the bird on it after I printed it out. The zoom wasn’t strong enough and the little guy was swinging in a branch anyway. So, I used the voice recorder. Viva la tecnología (whooray for technology).
You can listen to the audio here.
You can clearly identify the three syllables he does for bien-te-veo. Which in Spanish means I can see you well, or I can clearly see you, I don’t know which one would be a more appropriate translation, but I don’t like the one they have in Wikipedia-‘see you well’.
Hope you enjoy this bit of morning.
de monte y mar 
Hi!
If you can convert to mp3 then audioboo will allow you to upload mp3s that are less than five minutes long. Usually it’s used for spoken notes. I think they give you an embed code for your “boos” (as they are known).
I have a feeling that the translation would be “nice to see you”.
In England we have a nice bird called a yellowhammer. His little message that you can clearly hear him call is “a little bit of bread and no cheese”.
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hello Matthew! thanks for the tip, audioboo is EXACTLY what I was looking for! They have a WordPress embedding code and everything. Love it. And will be using it more 🙂
The thing is ‘nice to see you’ is ‘bueno verte’. There’s no literal translation because the bird sings the words ‘te veo’, two verbs that can’t be directly translated to Engligh. He says ‘bien=good’ ‘te veo=I see you’, where the you is implied.
Bread and no cheese! That little guy knows what he wants huh?! I found his song here http://www.flickr.com/photos/gjs1/2485702260/ precious!
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Happy to help! And well found re: the yellowhammer! 🙂
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