Birds | The Music of Nature

Twilight Tremolo

by Wil Hershberger · January 3, 2013 · 12 Comments

Listening to the sounds of night can be rewarding and sometimes scary (see Lang’s post). Armed with some knowledge of what these sounds are will assuage your fears, creating a feeling of joy and reward when you hear something that you recognize.

Among these amazing night-time sounds are the calls of the Eastern Screech-owl. These diminutive denizens of the dark are heard far more often than seen. About the size of a robin, they spend the day tucked up against the trunk of a tree or hidden within an old woodpecker hole. Occasionally, you might see an Eastern Screech-owl sitting in the entrance of a hole or nest box, seemingly sunning itself late in the afternoon.

Once the sun sets and the woods become quiet, the little screech-owls may start to call. Although they can be heard calling year-round, Eastern Screech-owls call more often from late June through mid-November. There are several calls that are used for different purposes: the tremolo is used for pair and family contact; the whinny call is used in territorial defense; and impressive squeals and bill snaps are given when there is a perceived threat to the nest or young.

Tremolo and whinny calls of a pair of Eastern Screech-owls. Frederick Co., MD. 1998 ©Wil Hershberger

A pair of Eastern Screech-owls engaged in squealing and bill snapping (the so-called “chuckle-rattle calls”) in response to my imitations of their tremolo calls. Frederick Co., MD. 1998 ©Wil Hershberger

Mysterious Voices of the Night

by Lang Elliott · November 20, 2012 · 12 Comments

In the world of nature sounds, mysteries abound, especially when it comes to weird and puzzling voices of the night …

Not long ago a woman by the name of Gail Canterbury heard a strange squealing sound late one evening in her backyard near Cortland, New York. Her husband Don made a recording with the video camera in his cell phone. He then extracted an mp3 audio file and sent it to a friend who knew a lot about night sounds. Here is the recording:

Mysterious night sound recorded by Gail and Don Canterbury near Cortland, New York in early August, 2012. Extracted from a cell phone video clip.

The friend … Chris Tessaglia-Hymes (who works at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology) was unable to identify the squeals, so he sent the recording to a number of his friends, including me. None of us knew for certain the source of the sound. Some thought porcupine or raccoon, others gray or red fox. My reaction was “raccoon until proven otherwise” because raccoons are so common and they do make squealing and whimpering sounds. But to tell the truth, I did not recognize the squeals, even though they seemed vaguely familiar.

Luckily, the recording kept circulating and then finally, in early November, someone identified it through comparison with a recording by Wil Hershberger that is in the Cornell Lab’s sound collection. You know Wil … he’s a contributor to this blog! Dang-it, we should have sent the mystery recording to him – surely he would have identified it. Right? Here is Wil’s recording:

Squealing calls and bill snaps of upset ?????? near their nest; elicited by the recordist imitating another of their calls. Recorded 12 July 1998 at 5am at Sugarloaf Mountain Natural Area near Clarksburg, Maryland. © Wil Hershberger.

I love it when mysteries are solved! When I first heard Gail’s recording, I sensed that I had heard the call before, but I just couldn’t remember where. Well, it turns out that Wil’s recording is part of our Music of Nature sound collection, and it is featured in our BirdTunes App for the iPhone and iPad. In other words, the answer was right under my nose, but I just didn’t make the connection.

So what is this mystery animal anyway? Wil’s recording contains a clue. Hear those bill snaps? Well, that tells you it’s a bird. But what bird squeals in the dark? How about an owl of some kind … hey, maybe you guessed it: Eastern Screech-Owl! Yes, these are upset calls of screech-owls, probably given near their nest. Such squeals and bill snaps are generally elicited by some kind of disturbance, maybe an approaching human or other predator, or else neighboring screech-owls coming too close.

The moral of the story: even so-called “experts” can easily be stumped. I personally vouch for this because I’ve been accused of being an expert and I’ve been stumped a number of times in recent years, in spite of wandering around in the dark quite a bit more than the average person.

____________

Mysterious voices of the night abound. Some are made by birds, mammals, frogs, or insects. But do beware … others are made by goblins, ghouls and ghosts … and may the good lord help those foolish souls who attempt to search them out, especially in a graveyard at midnight under the full moon, when the rest of us are fast asleep in the safety of our homes …

Growls and howls of a Ghoul, given just before chowing down on unsuspecting human prey. Take my hard-earned advice: “Don’t visit graveyards after dark!”

*click photo to enlarge in lightbox.

Screeches in the Night

by Lang Elliott · September 17, 2012 · 22 Comments

The first leg of my Australia trip involved driving from my hometown of Ithaca, New York to Columbia, Missouri, where Carl Gerhardt, my co-traveler lives. His home is on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River. I arrived yesterday evening and immediately noticed that it was dead-calm. So when darkness fell I walked the ridge trail to a small clearing in the woods, hoping to record the mellow insect chorus. But as I approached the clearing, I became aware of periodic screeches given by two mysterious creatures of the night, one fairly near and the other much farther away.

Excited to get a recording, I quickly placed my soundscape microphone at the edge of the clearing, a hundred feet or so from the nearest screecher. I turned the recorder on, left it sitting on the ground, and then moved back in the woods where I sat on a log and enjoyed the spectacle. How exciting, but “who” or “what” is making these unusual sounds?

Mysterious screeches in the night, set against a cricket and katydid chorus, 16 September 2012, 11:00 pm, near Columbia, Missouri. (don’t play too loud or the insects will overwhelm).

Someone new to nature’s night chorus might think these sounds are made by some kind of mammal. Or, if by a bird, they must be the screeches of a Screech-owl (that sure seems logical, doesn’t it?). Well, they are indeed made by owls, but not by screech-owls (which hardly ever make any sound approaching what we may call a screech) … these are the screeches of two young Barred or Great Horned Owls, I’m not entirely sure which.

Given the time of year, these are certainly not the calls of “baby” owls, but rather of immatures … adult-sized but still dependent on their parents for food. Such screeching sounds are generally thought to be “begging calls” or else “location calls” that allow the parent owls to find and feed the young.

But which species of owl is this? My initial impression was Barred Owl (at times, I could hear adults calling way off in the distance), but Carl says there are a lot of Great Horned Owls in the area. So I’m just not sure. Maybe someone out there can tell me how to tell the two apart, based entirely on the sound of the screeches of the immatures?

To my ear, this is a very pleasurable soundscape. The insects provide a continuous and reasonably mellow backdrop for the owl calls. And I love the distant caller, which adds depth to the recording. On the whole, I am very pleased to snag these mysterious voices of the night, only two days prior to our launch toward Australia.

Vesper Sparrow Fantasia

by Wil Hershberger · August 7, 2012 · 10 Comments

Vesper Sparrows are gorgeous small birds – a wonderful study in shades of brown. They are found in open habitats where they typically prefer some bare ground in the fields were they nest. Males sing, from elevated perches, a plaintive song that perfectly matches their open, often bleak-looking home. I think that the Vesper sparrow’s song is the prefect complement to these open grassy vistas, adding a hint of loneliness through the ears in concert with what the eyes are seeing.

Vesper Sparrows are found all across the United States in one season or another. The breeding range extends from the southern Appalachians northward into Canada and west and north well into Canada’s western provinces, then all the way south to nearly the Mexican boarder in Arizona and New Mexico.

Vesper Sparrow song is composed of pure, whistled notes, trills, and buzzy elements. It appears that all of the neighboring males in one field will share the same introductory whistles and perhaps the first few syllables of their song. Their songs are complex in that the males have a repertoire of perhaps 50 syllables that they can mix and match to compose a song. The endings of songs are the most dynamic and with the adding and dropping of syllables almost no two songs are alike.

Here is a recording of a male Vesper Sparrow singing his marvelous song from the roadside power lines in Antietam National Battlefield, MD:

Male Vesper sparrow singing at close range, Antietam National Battlefield, MD. July 20, 2012 © Wil Hershberger.

During the breeding season males defend their territories from other Vesper Sparrows. At times, they may chase an interloper away at high speed, sometimes uttering an amazing burst of notes, trills, and buzzes:

Male Vesper sparrow singing while chasing another Vesper Sparrow, Antietam National Battlefield, MD. July 23, 2012 © Wil Hershberger.

However, the real show stopper is the extremely rarely performed and even more rarely observed “flight song” of the Vesper Sparrow. Apparently, this display is mostly reserved for the end of the breeding season when the final nest is empty and the young have fledged. There are very few reports of what the male does during this flight display – here is my account. Patiently, quietly sitting on a perch, the male gives no indication of what is to come. Launching into the air as if hit by a jolt of electricity the male flutters slowly, almost straight up until he reaches a height of 30 feet. At this point he produces a frothing of notes, trills and buzzes that can only be an expression of total joy – “The breeding season is over and the kids are out on their own!” While in this exuberance he flies only a few feet higher on his fluttering wings. In the last few seconds of his song he turns sharply and flies down to another nearby perch where he sits quietly for a few minutes.

Here is my recording of the flight song of a male Vesper Sparrow:

The amazing flight song of the Vesper sparrow, Antietam National Battlefield, MD. August 5, 2012 © Wil Hershberger.

Isn’t that amazing? It is a shame that this wonderful, special song isn’t given more often so that more people could experience the bliss of this display.

Typical Vesper sparrow habitat. Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland.

Upon a pasture stone,
Against the fading west,
A small bird sings alone,
Then dives and finds a nest.

Edith Thomas

Magic Mountain Thrush

by Lang Elliott · July 20, 2012 · 8 Comments

In June of 2011 I visited the Uncompahgre Mountains of western Colorado to record nature soundscapes. On my last day there, I stopped my car in a dense forested area at around 10,000 feet elevation, where there was still a considerable amount of snow on the ground. That’s when I heard him, way off in the distance, a lone Hermit Thrush singing. This was not unusual by any means, but his song was different from any others I have ever heard:

Hermit Thrush song. Uncompahgre Plateau near Montrose, CO. June 15, 2011. Lang Elliott.

I headed in his direction, scurrying up a steep hill with all my gear, trying not to break through the crusty snow. Luckily, he kept singing and even though I was tired and exhausted, I finally got close enough to capture a good recording. The thrush was low in a spruce tree. I couldn’t see him, but his reverberant song rang clear against a backdrop of subtle meltwater trickle. I could hear a robin singing in the distance. “Nice,” I remember thinking,”very, very nice.”

It took me awhile to realize what was uniquely different about his singing. Like all Hermit Thrushes, each song begins with a clear whistle and ends with a jumble of flutey notes. But almost always, there is a lot of variability in pitch between songs. Low introductory notes may be followed by higher jumbles, high introductory notes by lower jumbles, with obvious and sometimes fairly radical pitch changes between songs (see example of normal singing below). But this bird started each and every song with a high-pitched note that was ALWAYS followed by a lower jumble. In fact, most of the flutey jumbles were quite low and rather delicate and simple in structure, at least according to normal Hermit Thrush standards.

Upon later analysis, I verified that every song followed this pattern, with an introductory whistle at around 3500 Hz followed by a low jumble that was usually centered at around 2000 Hz. This was no typical Hermit Thrush, and the effect of his performance, given in the cool, snow-covered mountain forest, was magical indeed.

Below is an example of another Hermit Thrush from the Uncompahgre Plateau, recorded within two miles of the male featured above. Notice the large pitch changes between subsequent songs and the robust flutey jumbles. This male is singing as Hermit males typically do. Quite a difference in singing pattern from the Magic Mountain Thrush, wouldn’t you agree?:

Hermit Thrush song. Uncompahgre Mountains near Montrose, CO. June 15, 2011. Lang Elliott.

Catbird NightSong

by Lang Elliott · July 16, 2012 · 7 Comments

Stillness reigns as sunlight dims …
The catbird’s liquid strain.
A farewell song that greets the night
As twilight’s glow begins to wane …
Wistful dreams of sweet refrain.

While thinking more about the possible melancholy aspect of catbird song (see Catbird Melancholia?), I remembered a recording I made over twenty years ago, in the dead of night, of a lone catbird singing with a chorus of bullfrogs far in the distance:

Night singing Gray Catbird, 12:15 am, 5/29/91, Conn Hill WMA near Ithaca, NY. Lang Elliott

Perhaps even more than the catbird featured in my previous blog post, this male stands out as very special indeed, at least to my ear. I love the way he employs silent intervals between songs. And his laid-back songs seem to be relatively free of the harsh and dissonant notes that characterize many performances. The end product is beautiful to behold, the quality of song punctuated by the mood of the night (at least that’s the way I hear it, but note that one of my Facebook friends recently described catbird song as being “irritating,” which is certainly NOT in agreement with my perception).

Does the darkness influence the catbird’s way of singing? Or does this individual sing this way all the time, even at dawn and in full light? I did not return to find out, so there is a mystery here. I suggest that all of us who live in catbird country listen very carefully from now on to see if we can discern a pattern. When does the catbird sing most beautifully and with a pensive tone? All the time, at dusk, at night, never?

The emotional impacts of bird songs are the result of a complex interaction between the quality of the song, the place and time of singing, and the emotional body of the listener. While each person will have his or her own unique experience, it is nonetheless possible, even likely, that poetically-inclined listeners will agree about felt emotional impact, at least some of the time (okay, I admit that I’m an optimist in this respect).

To date, I know of only one study of bird song that attempts to quantify aesthetics. In his book “Born to Sing,” Charles Hartshorne takes a rather technical approach to judging the quality of a bird’s song, defining six dimensions that potentially allow us to “rate” a species’ song-making ability: loudness, complexity, continuity, tone, closure, and imitativeness. While this is at least a beginning, I feel it ignores many subtle variables that may have strong impact on how we humans sense and feel a bird’s song.

Note: Two new books that include discussions of aesthetics are “Why Birds Sing” by David Rothenberg and “The Great Animal Orchestra” by Bernie Krause. Both are must reads for those interested in multidimensional treatments of bird song!

So what is it about certain bird songs that move us emotionally, that ignite our hearts and souls? Well, that’s a very good question and one that I hope we are able to make progress with as we voice our reactions to sound recordings posted on this blog.

Herkneth thise blisful briddes how they singe,
And see the fresshe floures how they spring:
Full is myn herte of revel and solas.
—Geoffrey Chaucer

Catbird Melancholia?

by Lang Elliott · July 16, 2012 · 8 Comments

Have you ever listened to a catbird singing at dusk, at the leading edge of a midsummer’s night? And have you noticed that the song often takes on a melancholy quality, a plaintive tone? I have noticed this, though I’m not sure others do. Maybe it’s just my ears, or else my particular uniqueness of mind … or both.

So tonight, on the evening of July 15, 2012, I ventured out into my neighborhood at dusk, a little after 8 pm. I could hear several catbirds in the distance, from singing from shrubbery or hedgerow trees in a nearby overgrown field. But just as I began walking in their direction, a male landed right in front of me, near the top of the tamarack tree next to our little pond, and began his lugubrious song. I was lucky enough to capture it, as bullfrogs periodically sounded off the background:

Gray Catbird singing at dusk. 8:15 pm, July 14, 2012, near Ithaca, NY. Recorded by Lang Elliott

So whatya think? Do you hear the quality to which I refer? Or does this sound like any old catbird, giving one unique phrase after the other, some squeaky and even jarring in tone?

I definitely hear a mournful hint, perhaps even more than a hint. Do you? And if you do, I wonder if this a widespread phenomenon, a mid-summer “dusk song” noticed only by those with a certain pensive quality of mind and a certain emotional sensitivity of the ear?

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not implying here that the singer (the male catbird) is melancholy in mood, only that we humans (or some portion of us) might be effected by the catbird’s dusk-song in this way. It is important to consider such things because our emotions largely define the landscape of our felt, poetic experience.

A melancholy bird? Oh, idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Pileated Woodpeckers Growing Up

by Marie Read · July 14, 2012 · 4 Comments

Back in early May, when I heard about a Pileated Woodpecker nest in the woods a few miles from my home, I was thrilled—I’d always wanted to photograph this species’ activities at the nest. Checking it out, it took me only a short time to realize that the adults were already feeding young. But the excitement really ramped up a couple of weeks later when the nestlings were almost old enough to leave the nest. By now they were really photogenic as they poked their heads out of the entrance of the nest cavity in a big dead tree trunk, ever watchful for their approaching parents.

The youngsters were getting noisy too! Earlier in May their rasping begging calls were only faintly audible from within the tree and only when an adult was present. Later on the begging became louder and more persistent as the nestlings grew older and more demanding, intensifying to the point of sounding frantic just before they were fed. In fact, for several days before the young left the nest, I could hear a constant kak-kak-kak in the distance while I walked down the trail into the woods each morning. I was glad for that sound cue, because by now the trees were so thickly leafed out that I had worried that I would have trouble relocating the nest tree!

Bob McGuire joined me one morning for sound recording. We knew the growing woodpeckers would start practicing adult vocalizations before they left home, something we wanted to be sure to record. We weren’t disappointed—there in the entrance of the hole sat the biggest of the young birds, demanding attention by giving the far-carrying adult call every few minutes as if to remind its parents, however distant they were, that it was still hungry. In human terms I suppose it’s like a teenager who’s reached the age where he’s started talking back to his long-suffering parents!

The nestling’s adult-like outburst sounds very different from its harsh begging calls. Listen to Bob’s first recording below, in which the begging nestling suddenly pauses and gives an adult call, followed by the parent bird responding from nearby with a long sequence of wuk calls.

Pileated Woodpecker fledgling calls, 23 May 2012, 5:45am, near Ithaca NY. Bob McGuire.

In Bob’s second recording, the nestling again gives an adult-like call, followed by a sequence of raspy begging calls. Then you’ll hear a feeding sequence in which the begging takes on a gagging quality as the adult is regurgitating food into the youngsters’ open bills, followed by more begging from several nestlings.

Pileated Woodpecker fledgling calls, 23 May 2012, 6:27am, near Ithaca NY. Bob McGuire.

Within a couple of days of these images and sound recordings the young Pileateds had left the nest and were following their parents around the woods, on their way to independence.

In terms of call development, it is interesting that the adult outburst given by the young is quite distinct from their raspy begging notes. One does not gradually transform into the other over time. The adult outburst is unique unto itself and appears more-or-less fully developed when it first occurs, though perhaps it sounds a bit harsh at first. Just for comparison, the recording below by Lang Elliott features outbursts given by two different adult birds, the last one also giving a sequence of typical wuk calls:

Adult Pileated Woodpecker outbursts plus typical wuk calls. Recorded by Lang Elliott.

Avian Satori

by Lang Elliott · July 12, 2012 · 4 Comments

In Japanese Buddhism, the word “satori” refers to “an awakening,” more particularly a spiritual awakening that often happens suddenly.

In the bird world, especially among temperate zone songbirds, each and every dawn during the breeding season begets an “avian satori,” a vocal awakening and celebration that occurs in the magical “twilight portal” between night and day. The avian satori is characterized by a rather sudden explosion of creative energy and sound that occurs at first light. For those of us humans who regularly witness this awakening, the effect is always deeply moving, a validation of the intrinsic spiritual power inherent in the event.

And so this morning I myself bore witness to the coming of dawn. Once again I was in Shindagin Hollow, this time placing my soundscape microphone near a small stream that in recent days has been reduced to a subtle trickle of water that only sounds off at specific locations. I set my microphone about fifteen feet away from the sounding water and then settled back into the silence as the birds awakened one by one and voiced their greeting to the new day.

This recording begins just before the first bird sang, a gentle trickle from the brook and then a string of songs and calls from a nearby Scarlet Tanager. Over the following ten minutes or so, a Veery and Wood Thrush join in, followed by Blue Jay, Dark-eyed Junco, Ovenbird, Common Yellowthroat, American Robin, and more. This is a midsummer chorus, gently subtle, with no overpowering elements. It is a delicate symphony and should be played in a quiet setting, the volume kept low and natural … otherwise the magic might be lost.

Enjoy!

Seneca Meadows Dickcissels

by Bob McGuire · July 10, 2012 · 12 Comments

The Dickcissel is an abundant breeder of the prairie grasslands with a range extending from Oklahoma/Kansas/Nebraska in the west to Ohio and southern Pennsylvania in the east. Furthermore, there are numerous records from New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, though mainly during the fall. It is no real surprise then, as the tall grass portion of the Seneca Meadows Preserve in northern Seneca County NY matures, to read recent reports of Dickcissel there. It is possible that the drought in their core breeding range has forced some to move outward in search of more favorable conditions for nesting.* At least two males and one female (the latter apparently carrying nest material) have been seen just off the Oak Pass Trail. The males have been singing a large portion of the day, perched up on the tallest flower stalks and even from the top of a mature oak.

The opportunity of recording these uncommon, nearby birds was too good to pass up, and I recently spent a few hours documenting the male vocalizations. Dickcissels are not known to have a “dawn song”, but I noticed that the rate of singing (the number of songs per minute) was significantly higher at first light and then slowed down by about a third for the rest of the morning. Here is an example of song at 5 am:

Dickcissel song, 7 July 2012 4:55 am Seneca Meadows Preserve Seneca Co NY. Recorded by Bob McGuire.

Here is the same bird singing an hour later:

Dickcissel song, 7 July 2012 5:58 am Seneca Meadows Preserve Seneca Co NY. Recorded by Bob McGuire.

And there is another interesting thing: while Dickcissels are reported not to have subspecies,* both Seneca Meadows birds sang the same song, and it differed significantly from recordings we have of more western birds. Here are examples of songs from Oklahoma, Kansas, and two from Missouri.

Four Dickcissel song types from Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Missouri.

While all these songs are clearly identifiable as Dickcissels (at least to the practiced ear), there is obviously a lot of variation. Perhaps they are regional dialects. All of this leaves me wondering, where did the Seneca Meadows birds come from? Most likely from Ohio or southern Pennsylvania. If that is true, then what does a Dickcissel from Ohio or southern Pennsylvania sound like?

* Temple, Stanley A. 2002. Dickcissel (Spiza americana), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology