Slowed Down Bird Songs

Beth downloaded some cool audio software that allows you to very easily slow down a song and still keep the same pitch. After trying it out with some songs from Bob Seger, Metallica, and Modest Mouse, I moved on to bird songs. By slowing down the complex songs of some birds, you can really see how truly unbelievable they are. Harmonies, slurs, and lightning-fast pitch changes show how impressive an organ the syrinx is. Here are a few samples. I had some problems with the volume and the length of the recordings. For some reason, the end of the recordings got cut off a bit. I'll figure it out and post more soon.

(I had originally embedded these files, but some folks had problems loading them. You should be able to click on the links to play the files.)

Hermit Thrush

Bobolink

Winter Wren

Mimicry in Vireos

I love that birding is always a learning experience. If you read the Frontiers of Bird ID mailing list, you may have seen the messages going back and forth regarding mimicry in vireos. Most of us know about mimicry in Mockingbirds, Thrashers, Catbirds, and even Starlings and Blue Jays. I had no idea that vireos were capable of any type of mimicry. Here is an excerpt:

Subject: vireo mimicry
Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 17:26:37 -0700

Tim Spahr's report of a Bell's Vireo song presumably coming from a Warbling Vireo is of interest; I did not run into this specific combination when reviewing vireo songs, so perhaps his will serve as the first known such event. But, what is known is that vireos are excellent mimics and frequently sing all or parts of other species' songs. I assume the songs they mimic are those from their breeding grounds, so it is interesting to ponder the above-mentioned overlap (and subsequent WAVI occurrence in MA on spring migration if it bred near a Bell's Vireo).

I know several examples of vireo mimicry (some of which are documented in BNA accounts, like Yellow-throated and Blue-headed accounts). From personal experience, my favorites are listening to Black-capped Vireos in Hill Country TX where, interspersed in their song are notes from, among others, Acadian Flycatcher, Western Scrub-Jay, etc. One can do the same with White-eyed Vireos; in an almost Mockingbird-fashion, listen to vireo songs and determine how many notes are coming from other species. OK, perhaps I need a life.

Matt Heindel
Carlsbad, CA

Very interesting indeed!

Birdsong Soundscapes for the Concert Stage and Lecture Hall

At last night's monthly meeting of the Urner Ornithological Club, one of the oldest birding clubs in NJ, member Andrew Lamy gave a wonderful presentation on a project he's working on. Andy is an accomplished clarinetist and ornithologist. He studies bird song using his knowledge of music and birds. He's particularly focused on Africa and has done many recordings there. Most recently, with the help of a grant, he and a team of scientists and musicians went to South Africa and recorded the songs of many birds. They also recorded a dawn chorus from the overgrown sand dunes of the Saint Lucia area of South Africa. Andy's goal is to present the bird song "in concert, artfully adding layers of musical interplay by instrumentalists positioned around the audience in unobtrusive ways." He played samples of the songs for us yesterday on CD and also played along with a multitude of instruments. His ability to mimic bird song with a variety of whistles, percussion instruments, his clarinet, and even his voice was astounding. I'm sorry I didn't have my camera with me. He's adapting the program to be presented to children as well as adults. Check out his web site if you get a chance.

New information on how birds sing

After discovering that my blog is not censored in China, I was even happier to come across this article from LiveScience discussing how songbirds make their beautiful songs. "X-ray movies of a singing northern cardinal reveal that the bird rapidly changes its vocal tract shape—from the simple shape of a drinking straw to a voluptuous flower vase—to give the song some flavor". The article also includes a video of a 360-degree view of a cardinal's vocal tract while singing. Now there's something you don't see every day.

Totally Trippy Bird Songs

What happens when a musician records singers making sounds and then speeds them up to mimic bird song? Marcus Coates, a UK artist, and Geoff Sample, author, musician and nature recordist, teamed up for the past 3 years to produce the amazing "Dawn Chorus". It's a combination of bird sounds and video footage of humans imitating the sounds. You can read about it here
and see a video clip here. It's really something you have to see to believe.

Here's some more info:

"During rigorous fieldwork 14 microphones were placed around woodland to record birds during one morning of birdsong in Northumberland. This study is the first, simultaneous, multi-microphone recording of individual birds during the dawn chorus. From this multi-track recording each song was slowed down up to 16 times, then each human participant was filmed mimicking this slowed down song. Finally the resulting video footage was then sped up, returning the bird mimicry into its 'real' register. The speeding up of the film not only magically translates the human voice into bird song, but also emphasises unconscious gestures that appear uncannily similar to the physical behaviour of specific birds; a grandfather becomes a pheasant and teachers in a staffroom transform into chiffchaffs, robins and blue tits."