Birds that Use Complex Songs & Calls

Video Transcript

Hello. Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Wayne Petersen and I'm the director of the Important Bird Areas Program for the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Today, we're here at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield. And, we're going to be talking about birding by ear. Now, we've talked a little bit about some of the songs that are fairly easy to remember because they either say their names, like the Killdeer, for example, or the Chickadee, or ones that phonetically are fairly easy to remember, like the "I am lazy" of the Black Throated Blue Warbler. But, there are other songs that are very complex and are much more difficult to remember on the strength of any particular sort of memory clue that you can hang on the song. The Brown Thrasher, for example, has one of the most complex songs of any bird in North America with all manner of variations both individually and from within one species, one individual within the species to another. A lot of the Thrushes as we mentioned earlier when we were talking about the Wood Thrush, for example, have quite complex songs. The tiny Winter Red with it's trills and little sputtery sounds is quite a complex vocalization. Certainly, some of our really caroling singers like the Rose Breasted Grosbeak and the Baltimore Oriole have complexities in their song. And, even the familiar American Robin is one who has lots of variations and nuances to its song. It's not as straightforward as something like the Whippoorwill or the Killdeer, for example.

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