Dawn chorus featuring Ovenbird, Black-capped Chickadee and American Robin (and more). 5:20am, 5 May 2016. Along road above Shindagin Hollow. © Lang Elliott. This is a 3D binaural soundscape; please wear headphones for optimal immersion.
I rose at 4am this morning so that I could be present in the forest when the first bird sang. I drove to a location in the hills above Shindagin Hollow and set my soundscape microphone next to the road. Water trickled softly down a drainage ditch. Otherwise it was completely quiet.
The “first bird,” unsurprisingly, turned out to be a distant American Robin, singing his praise for the new day precisely at 5:12am. Over the next few minutes, several other robins joined-in to produce a gentle and continuous backdrop of whistled songs.
Robins were not my target, however. I was waiting to record a ground-nesting wood-warbler that has been around for several days. At 5:24am, the first one made it’s presence known with a loud and ringing teacher–Teacher–TEACHER–TEACHER. Hallelujah, a male Ovenbird, sounding off from a horizontal mid-story branch nearby. Soon others were singing as well, along with a Black-capped Chickadee piping his ever-so-sweet fee-bee-eee.
The above recording features a five-minute segment where the Ovenbirds and the chickadee are going strong. I find it satisfying to listen-to, although I must admit that the Ovenbird’s song is not exactly “beautiful,” at least in the normal sense of the word. In fact, it can be rather jarring, especially when heard up close. Still, the male Ovenbird and his bright crescendo song is absolutely worthy of our celebration, so I’ve decided to do just that, right here and now!
Are you aware that Robert Frost actually wrote a poem about the Ovenbird?:
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
excerpt from: THE OVEN BIRD by Robert Frost
There is some confusion among scholars over what Frost meant by the line “Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.” My belief is that Frost was able to detect echos of the ovenbird’s songs reflecting off the trunks (which seems plausible considering how loud the songs can be at close range). Thus, the Ovenbird gives voice to the trees. I’m not sure, however, why he added the word “again” at the end … perhaps because a woodpecker “sounded” a tree (or two) a few moments before an Ovenbird “sounded” them again with his song?
p.s. You may wonder why they call this species the “Oven” bird. Well, because its ground nest (made of dead leaves, grasses, stems, and bark) is dome-shaped with a side entrance, like an outdoor clay oven!
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Extraordinary the work that you. They do what I would like to find myself in life doing, a job with the talent and perfections that can only be that of an ornithologist. I reiterate I found the essence of “birdlife” or the language of birds, because its message is in the original and primordial key of existence, today a missing link, with so much noise pollution and lack of human sensitivity for its ecosystem. Congratulations. Atte. Professor Gabriel. I am writing an autobiographical book or manual for patients (I do not like to say sick) with Parkinson’s, I suggested your… Read more »
[…] on this intriguing website. A few years ago, he captured the Ovenbird leading the birds at dawn in this recording. The Ovenbird is so loud and consistent that researchers have turned to its songs when needing to […]
[…] Here’s another take on the Ovenbird that puts its song in the orchestra of the dawn chorus. Lang Elliott has spent 30 years recording the sounds of nature, collected on this intriguing website. A few years ago, he captured the Ovenbird leading the birds at dawn in this recording. […]
Good morning! Wonderful way to awaken.
Here is an article for you from Scientific American about frogs.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/video/frogs-use-semaphore-code-in-noisy-environments/?WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20160511
Thanks Carole. Nice article!
Lang – what is the bird I’m hearing around minute 3;00 until the end that is in the background and a single staccato-type chirp? It’s pretty strong around the 4:30 mark. Love your recordings, thanks Lang.
Jennifer: I think they are calls of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak … an unusual version of their standard “chink” call. But I must admit that I’ve never heard this call before and I’m still a bit baffled by it.
We were just listening to this bird yesterday, lovely recording!
In re Frost, I wonder if ‘sound again’ might have been his poetic form of ‘resound’ … ovenbird’s voice surely does ring, reverberate; resoundingly so.
may be …
This morning I listened closely and heard the echo of an Ovenbird’s song, bouncing off tree trunks and limbs. The echo was actually quite a bit more obvious than I thought it would be … I just had to focus on listening to hear it.
No ovenbirds in my wee woods, so I enjoy this chap’s bright reveille. It is one of the more exclamatory voices, but with his back-up singers and instrumentalists, net result is a smilemaker. This works well as a mid-afternoon fresh air pick-me-up, hold the caffeine.
Sharon: I like that: “a mid-afternoon fresh air pick-me-up”! It does not belong on the “tranquil” list, but it is nice in its own right.
Great to listen to as usual. Who is making the brief squeaky calls near the end?
I’m not sure who is making that call.
Ovenbird interaction calls. They can be heard earlier in the sound track. Sound similar to Rose-breasted grosbeak chips, but I believe the former. There are a freakin’ lot of ovenbirds there.
I figured you’d provide an answer Norm. I’ve recorded interaction calls, but they were higher in pitch. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have calls that I’ve never documented.
At first I thought they were the calls of Swainson’s Thrush, but that didn’t quite seem right. They seem familiar somehow, as if I know them but I’m not remembering from where.
p.s. yep, it was light Grand Central for Ovenbirds, at least during this section of an hour-long recording.
After listening more, I think they are calls of an rbgroby. I know there is one in the area because he sings in a different part of the longer raw recording. Still, I have no prior examples of these particular calls, with the exception of one or two that would qualify as a “chink.”
This xeno-canto file is a good match for Rose-breasted Grosbeak–so that could be our chip notes, as Lang points out. Good mystery quiz.
http://www.xeno-canto.org/14959
Ovenbird chip notes here, with two pitches (presuming the ID is correct). Paul Marvin is a reliable contributor to xeno-canto.
http://www.xeno-canto.org/149487
http://www.xeno-canto.org/149486
Beautiful recordings, the Wood Thrush and today the Ovenbird. I remember once reading that the Ovenbird was John Burroughs favorite. That’s some
good thing to think about.
Thank you, Lang, for bringing the music
to our hearts.
I just found this really nice essay by John Burroughs about the Ovenbird:
http://fullreads.com/literature/the-oven-bird/
Listening to this, I can smell the ozone…
me too!
i wonder if frost was playing with words, as in “sound” can mean whole or solid, but of course also means what we hear. so maybe he is playing with that word and the concept that the bird makes the tree “sound” as in gives it a voice by being in it singing. but he’s just called the tree “solid” so i think that is why he adds the “again”. meaning you could interpret it as solid and sound, as in whole or solid. which would mean you’ve said the same thing again.
Might be. I’ve entertained the same concept you have put forth in some unpublished poems where I refer to “singing trees” … meaning that the trees are inhabited by birds that sing, but since one usually cannot see the birds themselves, it is as if the tree is singing.
But then why does he refer to “trunks” as opposed to “limbs”. The Ovenbirds sing from limbs, preferring mid-level limbs that spread out horizontally. Thus, the Ovenbirds would be sounding the limbs, not the trunks. No wonder the experts quarrel about it.
lovely complex mix.
do you have any butcherbirds where you are? i have never heard one in person, only recordings. but their song always makes me almost cry for some reason–some combination of how beautiful it is and also sad or poignant. don’t know why i thought of that–just popped into my head when reading “oven bird”.
Butcherbirds are Australian. I actually do have recordings of two species, but not the famed Pied Butcherbird.
ah, did not realize they were australian
One of my other favorite birds! Great posts!
Looking forward to hearing that soon.