{"id":1315,"date":"2021-06-01T23:40:44","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T03:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/?p=1315"},"modified":"2021-06-02T06:56:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T10:56:48","slug":"the-ethics-of-song-and-call-playback-on-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/2021\/06\/01\/the-ethics-of-song-and-call-playback-on-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ethics of Song and Call Playback on Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sound signals provide important ways for birds to communicate. Playing a recording of a bird’s song may attract the attention of a female and usually attracts the attention of males, intent on driving away the intruder. Alarm calls may attract a diverse group of birds, congregating to mob the threat that caused birds to issue the alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of playbacks of recordings of those sounds has been a powerful tool for ornithologists for decades. Playing vocalizations at different times of the day or at different times of a season helps us understand the function of different sounds. Playbacks can be used to map the boundary of a bird’s territory. The ornithologist walks toward a singing male. The male will usually ignore vocalizations of a neighboring male until that male (or the playback) crosses into the first bird’s territory. In this fashion, it is possible to map the boundaries of a territory with amazing accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the advent of smartphones and bluetooth technology, it is easy for a birder to play bird vocalizations to attract birds for a closer look. There are lots of apps of bird sounds available for smartphone use. A small bluetooth speaker emits a surprisingly loud sound, amplifying the relatively weak smartphone speaker. These playbacks are highly effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of playbacks has some ethical implications. A male bird’s stress hormones increase immediately after hearing the sound of a putative intruding male. Birds become agitated, increasing their metabolism. They must increase their food intake to replace those calories used in response to a perceived threat. The use of alarm calls has an even stronger effect. Playing a recording of chickadees mobbing an owl or the vocalizations of a Northern Saw-whet Owl attracts numerous individuals of multiple species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not use playbacks when I am birding by myself. When I lead a field trip, I occasionally will judiciously use playback to attract hard-to-see birds. My logic is that the minute or so of stress on a bird from hearing a playback allows everyone in the group to see the bird. Spending ten minutes of more following the bird around to allow everyone to get a look may be more stressful on the bird. I never use playback in a frequently birded area because other birders may be using playbacks at that site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other birders use playbacks often. One example is Birding Bob, a New York City birder who plays vocalizations often and at high volume in places like Central Park. The New York Times recently posted a video op-ed of Birding Bob with commentary from several other birders. The video provides a balanced look at the pros and cons of using playbacks. You can see the video by clicking here<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sound signals provide important ways for birds to communicate. Playing a recording of a bird’s song may attract the attention of a female and usually attracts the attention of males, intent on driving away the intruder. Alarm calls may attract a diverse group of birds, congregating to mob the threat that caused birds to issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1323,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions\/1323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}