On the morning of June 7, 2010, in the predawn hour, I arrived at the boat landing in Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin, with the aim of recording the songs of Prothonotary, Kentucky, and Yellow-throated Warblers (all specialties of the park). As I got my bearings and starting listening for my target birds, I heard a particularly vociferous Eastern Phoebe performing an extended bout of Dawn Song. I took advantage of the opportunity and stopped to record a portion of it. At the time I did not notice anything unusual about the performance, other than it did seem a little bit more enthusiastic than I was used to hearing. However, when listening to the recording and viewing the sonogram, I noticed something unusual. Normally Eastern Phoebes will alternate their two song phrases, (1) fee-bee and (2) fee-b-be-bee. These are also sometimes designated as RR1 and Rr2. This bird, however, seems to be introducing a third phrase, or at the very least, a well-defined variant of RR1.

RR1

RR1 variant (RR1-v). Notice the extra note at the end.

Rr2

In the sonogram below the pattern is: RR1, Rr2, RR1-v, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1-v, Rr2 (click the image to see a larger view)

In the recording sample below, the pattern is: Rr2, RR1-v, Rr2, RR1-v, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1-v, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1-v, Rr2, RR1, Rr2, RR1-v, Rr2
Eastern Phoebe Dawn Song Variation
Eastern Phoebe Dawn Song Variation, Wyalusing State Park, WI, June 7, 2010.

Tallying up all 92 songs this phoebe sang in the 3:09 minutes that I recorded it, there were 21 RR1, 26 RR1-v, and 45 Rr2.

In the somewhat limited research I have conducted, I have not found any mention of this or a similar phenomenon in the vocal behavior of Eastern Phoebes. Similarly, a somewhat cursory search through xeno-canto, Macaulay Library, and the Borror Laboratory online archives, did not turn up anything either. So I don’t believe there is any way to tell at this point if this is just the behavior of an unusual individual, or if it represents a sample of a wider phenomenon. It is definitely something I will be keeping and eye and ear open for in the future.

produced by airflow over outstretched outer rectrices of spread tail, modulated by beating of wing. –
Birds of North America Online

Wilson's Snipe Winnowing
Wilson’s Snipe Winnowing and flight calls, Kettle Moraine, Waukesha County, WI, April 18, 2010.

Another category of Snipe sounds are the “Jick” and “Chipper” calls:

Wilson's Snipe Jick Call
Wilson’s Snipe “Jick” calls, Kettle Moraine, Waukesha County, WI, April 4, 2010.

Here is a description of the equivalent call from the closely related Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago)

On the nesting grounds, males deliver their display songs from conspicuous perches as loud “TIKa, TIKa, TIKa” or “kit, kit, kit, kit, kit…” notes.
http://www.birding.in/birds/Charadriiformes/Scolopacidae/common_snipe.htm

(see this blog post for additional examples http://pjdeye.blogspot.com/2009/05/shorebird-calls-iii-woodcock-and-snipe.html)

The “scaipe” call is commonly heard when snipe are flushed. They shoot up from the marsh or wet meadow and fly in a zig-zag pattern, usually uttering several of these calls. Here is an example of a bird recorded in exactly this type of situation as I was walking at the edge of a marsh:

Wilson's Snipe scaipe call
Wilson’s Snipe scaipe call, Kettle Moraine, Waukesha County, WI, April 4, 2010.

I’ve read the opinion that this common call of the Blue Jay is just coincidentally similar to the Red-tail’s call, but after viewing these sonograms together I have no doubt it is mimicry. Note especially the similarity between the last calls of each.

One juvenile is in the foreground in a small bush. Behind it is another bush with a least one more juvenile. At 21s. an adult female lands with food in front of the first juvenile. You can hear an intensification in the begging calls at that point, with an increase in the frequency of calling and also an increase in the length of the calls.

I found another recording of juvenile Yellow-headed blackbirds at the Borror Laboratory site, recorded on July 3, 1970 in North Dakota. The begging call in this recording is very similar to the one in my recording, as can be seen from a comparison of the spectrograms.

My recording is on the top and the Borror recording on the bottom.

I’m not sure what to attribute the differences in the wave form to. Could be they are from different periods in the development of the juveniles. It would be great to obtain a series of recordings of one individual over the course of its first summer.

The X-axis represents the date and the Y-axis represents the number of song-type vocalizations heard.

Methods

In early Nov. 2009 I established a route of 1.13 miles through Estabrook Park, Milwaukee, WI. This route takes an hour to walk at a relaxed pace. I attempted to start each session as close to dawn as possible and to complete the route in as close as 1 hour as possible. While walking the route I noted all song type vocalizations heard. Each bird making a song type vocalization counted as 1. I did not count additional songs coming from the same individual.

Results

Nov 7, 2009: 0630-0730. Estabrook Park, WI., 52 degrees, clear skies.
0 song type vocalizations

Nov 14, 2009: 0640-0740. Estabrook Park, WI,. 44 degrees, cloudy.
0 song type vocalizations

Nov 21, 2009: 0650-0750. Estabrook Park, WI,. 45 degrees, cloudy.
1 singing House Finch

Nov 27, 2009: 0710-0810. Estabrook Park, WI,. 45 degrees, cloudy.
0 song type vocalizations

Dec 6, 2009: 0700-0800. Estabrook Park, WI,. 30 degrees, cloudy.
0 song type vocalizations

Dec 13, 2009: 0715-0815. Estabrook Park, WI,. 33 degrees, cloudy.
2 song type vocalizations: house finch, european starling

Dec 20, 2009: 0715-0815. Estabrook Park, WI,. 22 degrees, cloudy.
10 song type vocalizations:
1 house finch
1 robin
1 crow rattle
4 BCCH (2 countersinging)
3 WBNU (2 countersinging)

Dec 21, 2009: 0715-0815. Estabrook Park, WI,. 22 degrees, cloudy.
9 song type vocalizations:
4 BBCH
1 WBNU
2 House Finch
1 Robin
1 DEJU

Dec 24, 2009: 720-820, Estabrook Park, WI,. 32 degrees, cloudy and windy.
2 Song type vocalizations: 1 WBNU, 1 EUST

Dec 26, 2009: 720-820, Estabrook Park, WI,. 26 degrees, light snow, windy.
5 song type vocalizations:
3 BCCH (2 countersinging)
1 WBNU
1 crow rattle

Dec 27, 2009: 720-820, Estabrook Park, WI,. 22 degrees, cloudy.
7 song type vocalizations:
4 BCCH (2 countersinging)
1 WBNU
1 American Robin
1 EUST

Discussion

I remain skeptical about the significance of the actual winter solstice to birds and its effect on their singing behavior. However, I do think that this experiment demonstrates that the beginning of the singing season falls at approximately the same time as the winter solstice for several common bird species of the eastern North American temperate forests. The species in question are the White-breasted Nuthatch and the Black-capped Chickadee. For the 6 sessions between Nov 7 and Dec 13, no White-breasted Nuthatches or Black-capped Chickadees were heard singing (they were seen or heard calling in all of these sessions, but not singing). After that date, the White-breasted Nuthatch was heard singing on all 5 sessions and the Black-capped Chickadee on 4 of the 5. This change in the singing behavior of these two species accounts for a considerable amount of the increased singing activity evident in the results.

1) Vernon Marsh, Waukesha County, WI. September 6, 2009.

2) Horicon Marsh, WI, November 8, 2009. This is a very late date for Marsh Wrens in Wisconsin. The BNA account mentions juveniles practicing song into October, so in that respect this seems rather late as well.

The Marsh Wren quality is evident in these juvenile efforts but they lack the organization, structure and assurance of the adult song.

Compare to adult – recorded at Vernon Marsh on June 14, 2009. Here we have six songs sung in succession, all different (immediate variety) but all highly structured, with definite organization and exact duplication of song units.

American Goldfinch

I’ve searched the archives at Xeno-Canto and Macaulay Library but I haven’t been able to find another recording of this particular vocalization. Superficially it is similar to the well-know “potato-chip” flight call, but the speed of delivery is faster, the notes are ascending, and there are more than 4 notes per series. Unfortunately I do not know the sex of the bird vocalizing. I observed a pair of goldfinches fly into an area of dense shrubbery and this is the sound that came forth. I didn’t have a visual of the bird while I was recording. Given that, I cannot be 100% certain that this is actually an American Goldfinch, but considering the overall quality of the vocalization, the location, season, and circumstance, I believe it is a fair call.

Red-breasted Nuthatch song

This appears to be the “agonistic song” as described in Birds of North America Online

Earbirding.com (great blog on bird sounds) has a very informative article about nasality in bird sounds that uses the Red-breasted Nuthatch song as the classic example.

A beautiful, sunny fall morning (despite the hunters blasting away all around and giving me a general feeling of unease.)
You can hear the leaves falling in the background of this recording.

This flicker flew into a tree in front of a flock of robins that I was recording. You can hear various robin vocalizations in the background as the flicker called twice. Its evident from the two sonograms that the calls are highly variable. This call is often referred to as the “klee-yer” or “Peah” call. There is some disagreement in the literature as to its function, either as an alarm call or a contact call. BNA cites research suggesting that:

Peah functions as a “signature” call that enables adults and fledglings to recognize each other. Duncan (1990) showed that Peahs contain sufficient information for individual identification and argued that parents learn signatures of their young and vice versa during late hatchling phase, and this information is used to locate each other postfledging.