27 December 2024
White-fronted nunbirds (Monasa morphoeus) are at their most interesting when they sing in “group choruses of loud gobbling, barking notes, sustained for up to 20 minutes at a time, chiefly at the beginning and end of day.” — quoted from Birds of the World.
If you wanted to hear them in the wild, go to these regions of Central and South America.
p.s. “White-fronted” describes birds whose foreheads are white such as the greater white-fronted goose and white-fronted nunbirds.
5 December 2024
Crows are so vocal that we can’t help but think their caws are a language. So what are crows saying in their big boisterous flocks before they roost?
Dr. Douglas Wacker at University of Washington Bothell (UWB) wondered the same thing so in 2017 his team began recording and analyzing pre-roost aggregations on the UWB roofs. The rooftop recordings were not enough to crack the code so now the team has turned to spectrogram analysis.
Dr. Wacker presented information on crow vocalizations at the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society in November 2024. To measure the calls they analyzed these components.
The team recorded crow vocalizations in various contexts and compared the spectrograms. And they discovered an unusual thing. Crows appear to be “saying” things in the silence between their caws (gaps) and the pauses between their calls.
If you want to know what a crow is saying, listen to their silences.
Learn more about crow language in this Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society’s video. I have set it to start nearly an hour into the meeting, beginning with spectrogram analysis of crow calls. I’ve included this 15 minute portion here because it is so interesting. Click here to see the entire 1.5 hour meeting.
Some day we might know what this crow is saying. In the meantime, listen to the gaps.
p.s. Dr. Wacker described an intriguing idea: The messages in human language come from our sounds. The messages in crow language appear to come from silences. Perhaps we can’t figure out what crows are saying because we aren’t used to listening to the silences.
28 April 2024
Now that the breeding season is here the air is filled with birdsong from dawn to dusk. Birds sing to claim territory and attract a mate, but they also appear to sing for the joy of joining others in song. Is the dawn chorus actually a community performance?
In the 1920s British cellist Beatrice Harrison discovered that when she played her cello in the garden the birds responded, approached, and sang along.
Europe’s great songster, the common nightingale, was especially drawn to join her performance. (Click here for the nightingale’s song.)
In 1924 the BBC recorded her playing in the garden with a nightingale joining in.
Fast forward to modern times. Two decades ago in Chicago, musician Lisa Rest lived in a third floor apartment whose windows were level with the tree canopy. On warm days she played her piano with the window open and eventually noticed that birds approached her window and sang while she was practicing.
Because Lisa has perfect pitch she could tell the birds were singing in key with her music. Soon she became interested in birds, continued playing music with them, and started a blog named Goldbird Variations. The birds were especially drawn when she played Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
Read how her journey began at her blog post below or click here to listen to Aria to the Goldberg by Lisa Rest in which she’s accompanied by house sparrow, house finch, white-throated sparrow and northern cardinal.
Nowadays Lisa Rest often goes birding and blogs about birds and the changing seasons. Catch up with her at Goldbird Variations (https://musicbirdblog.com/).
For more information about Beatrice Harrison and the nightingales see The Cello and Nightingale Sessions at publicradio.org.
(credits are in the captions)
26 January 2024: Day 8, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe — Road Scholar Southern Africa Birding Safari. Click here to see (generally) where I am today.
Though I can identify birds by song at home, it’s almost impossible to do in southern Africa among birds I’ve never heard before. To prepare for this trip I spent time learning about the birds I might see. Then I discovered their odd and distinctive sounds. Here’s a sample of some notable ones.
Babble: Arrow-marked babblers (Turdoides jardineii), pictured above, are gregarious birds that nest cooperatively and love to sing together. One or two birds may start the babbling song, then everyone joins in. Even after the cacaphony stops a few will mutter to each other. Babblers are members of the Laughingthrush family (Leiothrichidae). When I listen to them it makes me laugh.
Ring: The tropical boubou or bellshrike (Laniarius major) is a frequent singer with a bell-like voice. Contact calls like bou, hou, boubou or bobobobo give the bird its name but in song its vocal repertoire really shines. Boubous often duet in male-female pairs or two males in adjacent territories who call-and-respond so quickly that they sound like one bird. The songs are so amazing that I’ve included three examples.
Toot: The pearl-spotted owlet (Glaucidium perlatum) is the smallest owl in southern Africa, similar in size to our northern saw-whet owl. Though they aren’t in the same genus, the owlet’s call reminds me of a saw-whet’s toot except for this: The owlet toots louder and higher until he drops off at the end.
Shout: The hadada ibis (Bostrychia hagedash) is just plain loud. His name comes from his extremely loud and distinctive “haa-haa-haa-de-dah” call which he makes all year long, especially at dawn and dusk. Hadada ibises are now very common in suburbs where people hear them every day. Imagine one shouting from your roof.
For more sounds of the African bush, including mammals and frogs, see Derek Solomon’s wildlife sound recordings.
p.s. I heard every one of these birds and I saw all except the pearl-spotted owlet. The owlet called from a hiding place just before sunset.
23 January 2024: Day 5, Zambezi National Park — Road Scholar Southern Africa Birding Safari. Click here to see (generally) where I am today.
Today we’re on a birding drive through Zambezi National Park where we’re sure to hear the unique call of a very plain bird.
The gray go-away bird (Crinifer concolor) is named for the whiny sound he makes that, in English, sounds like “go awaaaaay.” All gray in color, he has a crest like a northern cardinal but he’s more than twice its length and 10 times its weight. Unlike the cardinal’s beautiful song the go-away bird sounds like he’s whining.
In fact he’s making an alarm call and all the birds and animals know it, fleeing or freezing in place while he warns them.
He whines alone …
… or with a crowd.
Go-away birds don’t fly well but they can clamber.
Though their flight is rather slow and laboured, they can cover long distances. Once in the open tree tops however, they can display the agility which is associated with the Musophagidae [Turacos], as they run along tree limbs and jump from branch to branch. They can form groups and parties numbering even 20 to 30 that move about in search of fruit and insects near the tree tops.
— Wikipedia: grey go-away bird
At some point I’m sure they’ll tell us to “Go Awaaaay!”
1 October 2023
Fall migration has been intense over Pittsburgh lately and promises to be excellent tonight and tomorrow as well. Yesterday morning I went birding at Frick Park, expecting to find loads of warblers. No such luck. The birds flew over without stopping. However, for chipmunks it was a fantastic day.
Despite the current warm weather, chipmunks (Tamias striatus) are frantically gathering food to store in their underground burrows where they’ll spend the winter. Since they can’t use their paws to carry food, they fill their enormous cheek pouches.
What could possibly make their cheeks so fat? How about acorns?
With so many chipmunks scurrying in autumn, you rarely see two together. Chipmunks are antisocial but they like to make calls to warn each other of predators. Among their most common calls are two kinds of warnings.
Cheep or Chip: “Danger from the ground!” This call sounds almost like a bird and warns of nearby terrestrial predators such as a cat, fox, coyote or raccoon.
Tock or Knock: “Danger from the air! I see a hawk!” This is a useful call for birders that tells us to search for a hawk nearby. However, chipmunks know that hawks fly rapidly through the forest so all of them take up the call, far and wide, even though the hawk is not near them. Tock! Tock! Tock! Where is that hawk? Erf!
Read more about the chipmunk’s calls at North American Nature: What Sounds Does a Chipmunk Make?
(credits are in the captions)
30 August 2023
In August in the East End of Pittsburgh we get a taste of November dusk. It isn’t the weather or the clouds or the time of sunset. It’s a flock of more than 100 crows, a hint of the thousands to come this fall, that gather on rooftops along Neville Street before flying west to roost.
This year in early August the crows were absolutely silent but as the month progressed a few spoke out, telling me they were in a mixed flock of American and fish crows. American crows (Corvus brachyrhyncos) say “Caw.” Fish crows say a nasal “Uh-oh” (Corvus ossifragus). It’s the only reliable way to tell them apart.
American crow: “Caw Caw Caw.”
Fish Crow: Nasal “Uh oh”
I wanted to count by species but the crows remained silent and unidentifiable through most of the month. I tried to tell them apart by sight but my focus on appearance made it impossible to count. So I stop trying. My August eBird checklists place all of them as “American crows” with an X for “Fish crows present.”
Then suddenly last Saturday they were all “talking” and about three quarters of them were fish crows. The flock continued on Sunday evening but I was too busy to count. I shouldn’t have assumed they’d be here on Monday. They were gone and they haven’t been back.
The big flocks will arrive in late October, comprised of 90+% American crows.
For now we’re in the Calm Before The Crows.
p.s. eBird’s Fish Crow Weekly Abundance map shows a dot in Pittsburgh in the month of August … and then it’s gone. Watch the animation here.
(credits are in the captions)
27 July 2023
In late July, who’s singing now?
Almost no one.
Birds sing during the breeding season to claim territory and attract mates but most songbirds wrap up the breeding season by mid-July. When breeding’s over they stop singing.
You’ll hear a handful of exceptions, though, among songbirds who nest many times each year. Song sparrows and northern cardinals raise multiple broods and have active nests in late July. Both are still singing though not as vigorously.
You won’t hear songs from birds who have finished breeding but you will hear their contact calls. Common grackles raise only one brood per year and by July they are already in flocks, sweeping through the woods and foraging on the ground.
You might not see them on the shady forest floor but you’ll hear them making “chucking” sounds like this. (Note: There are additional birds making noise in the background of this recording.)
Birdsong will drop off completely next month. Take note of the few singers now.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the link to see the original)
1 June 2023
Northern mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) are famous for mimicking the voices of other birds. Often they’re so good at it that the only way to recognize they’re mockingbirds is to notice that the phrases are repeated three times, then a pause.
On Tuesday 30 May I encountered a mockingbird singing his heart out atop a light post at CMU’s Morewood parking lot. He was so excited that he jumped up and down with his wings open. “Look at me!”
Just for yuks I turned on Merlin sound ID to see how the app would process his song. Sometimes Merlin said “northern mockingbird,” sometimes it said the bird he was mimicking.
In the following 2:49 minutes he’s the only bird singing.
What’s he say? Who is he mimicking? Leave a comment with your answer.
UPDATE: Check the comments for my list of songs that I *think* he sang.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons, audio by Kate St. John embedded from xeno canto)
9 May 2023
This year the orchard orioles, smallest of the blackbirds (Icterids), returned to Pittsburgh in late April. We knew they were back when we heard this male singing near Frick Park’s Nine Mile Run boardwalk on 26 April. Ten days later we returned to the boardwalk and heard him again but it was a different bird — an immature male — and we remembered this: You can’t assume the singing bird is an adult male. In fact in the spring all the orchard orioles sing.
Orchard orioles (Icterus spurius) spend most of their lives in Central and South America and only a short time on their breeding grounds in southwestern PA from late April to August/September.
Adult males start singing in Central America before they head north. When they get here they sing during the nesting season and continue while feeding young. Then they fall silent. May is the best time to hear them.
Adult male voices are wiry and rapid with no pattern to the song. Here are two examples:
Immature males sing, too.
One-year-old males look different than adults and to a discerning listener — the female orchard oriole — they also sound different. Singing is a learning process and these yellow-green guys with black faces aren’t accomplished songsters yet. Here are two examples of immature male songs.
Females sing as well. Birds of the World explains: “Most tropical icterids have a female song and, ancestrally, the whole family is thought to have this behavior. Female Orchard Orioles sing throughout the breeding period with songs that are structurally distinct from those of males. … Their songs are statistically different in 5 of 8 acoustic variables (full song duration, syllable duration, maximum frequency, bandwidth and percent pause), and are easily distinguished by ear in the field.”
Click on the screenshot of the female below to watch and hear her sing.
So just when you think that singing bird is male, remember there are species in which all of them sing.
Read more the orchard oriole at All About Birds.
(photos by Charity Kheshgi and Donna Foyle, range map from eBird, female oriole screenshot from Macaulay Library; click on the caption links for further details)
