In the last column, I wrote about the morning chorus, the marvelous dawn symphony performed by singing birds during the breeding season.\u00a0 The chorus is still going strong (much to the dismay of some would-be sleepers).\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ll expand on the topic in today\u2019s column, exploring the complexity of bird songs.<\/p>\n
The males of some species give a very simple song like the harsh \u201cfee bee\u201d of the Eastern Phoebe or the \u201chey sweetie\u201d or \u201cfee bee-ee\u201d song of the Black-capped Chickadee.\u00a0 Although some individual variation occurs among males of these species, the repertoire of different songs is low.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, some of our breeding birds have long, complex songs with great variation. Some of this variation occurs between males and some of the variation occurs in a single male.<\/p>\n
Red-eyed Vireos give their familiar singsong vocalization, \u201chere I am \u2013 where are you \u2013 over here\u201d.\u00a0 By recording Red-eyed Vireos and analyzing the songs with sound analysis software, my students and I have found that one male may give over 40 songs.\u00a0 Males are tireless; a single bird may sing over 20,000 songs in a day.<\/p>\n
You may be surprised to know that the Brown Thrasher has the most varied repertoire of any bird studied.\u00a0 A single male can sing over 2000 songs!<\/p>\n
Species with complex songs include virtuosos like Bobolinks, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Song Sparrows.\u00a0 Each male gives a long song with many phrases.\u00a0 A bird may omit, replace or add particular phrases to produce different renditions of its song.\u00a0 The speed of note production can be dazzling.\u00a0 The ethereal song of a Winter Wren includes over 100 notes given in less than 10 seconds.<\/p>\n
Ornithologists have been intrigued by the variety of repertoire sizes of male songbirds and have noted some interesting patterns. \u00a0Species with large repertoires tend to have high parental care by the male of a pair.\u00a0 Migratory songbirds tend to have greater repertoire sizes than related non-migratory species.\u00a0 Finally species that are polygynous (males have multiple female mates) have larger repertoire sizes.<\/p>\n
In a fascinating paper, Susan Peters of Duke University and three colleagues described the results of a study of song complexity in the Song Sparrow.Song Sparrows are widely distributed in North America.\u00a0 They have a complex song that usually begins with three clear notes and then a complicated and variable series of single notes, phrases of several notes, and trills.\u00a0 Song Sparrows have a large repertoire of songs.\u00a0\u00a0 The phrase \u201cmaids maids maids put on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle-ettle\u201d captures some of the cadence and complexity of the songs.<\/p>\n
Some populations of Song Sparrows are migratory while others, typically in more moderate climates, are year-round residents.\u00a0 All Song Sparrows are monogamous and males of sedentary and migratory populations contribute equally to brood rearing.<\/p>\n
Peters and her colleagues compared the repertoire sizes of two sedentary populations of Song Sparrows (in North Carolina and Washington state, both of which have relatively mild winters) to migratory populations of Song Sparrows from Maine and Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Most of the Song Sparrows in the latter two states migrate south in the winter.<\/p>\n
The researchers recorded Song Sparrows in all of these states and then analyzed them to compare the number of different songs from each population.\u00a0 Their analysis revealed that the Washington and North Carolina sedentary populations were more similar to each other than to either the Pennsylvania or Maine populations.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, these ornithologists found that the sedentary populations had more complex repertoires than the migratory populations.\u00a0 These results conflict with the conventional wisdom that migratory species generally have larger and more complex repertoires than non-migratory species.\u00a0 It is clear from the work of Peters and her colleagues that we have much to learn about reasons for differences in the complexity of bird song.<\/p>\n
[Originally published on June 24, 2012]<\/p>\n\n
In the last column, I wrote about the morning chorus, the marvelous dawn symphony performed by singing birds during the breeding season.\u00a0 The chorus is still going strong (much to the dismay of some would-be sleepers).\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ll expand on the topic in today\u2019s column, exploring the complexity of bird songs. The males of some species […]<\/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":[4625],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509"}],"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=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}