Songs Out of Context as Alarm

Where I’m from there are lots of Carolina Wrens. I’ve always been curious as to why in the middle of winter they would suddenly burst out in song. I always suspected it was an alarm because it was so out of context, and it was loud enough and it carried with it a feeling that felt alarming. It didn’t sound like the normal song, but it was the song phrases, so if you heard it on a bird tape, you wouldn’t know the difference.

I noticed this because they would sing out of context in these sudden bursts that seemed to be associated with other bird alarms. It wasn’t like they were singing territorially; they seemed to be singing for another reason.

One day I had the opportunity to figure out exactly what was going on. I was walking below the dam at Marlou Twitchel Farms, which is now a county park in Monmouth county New Jersey. I was following the stream looking at the tracks of a Muskrat and a Mink, when I heard that alarm going off in a very specific location.

The sound came from the top of a south-facing hill, and in the January winter, it was a little microclimate of warmth. There were always little gnats hovering around even though it seemed to be twenty degrees outside. So, after I heard that alarm sequence go off, I walked up the hillside and found an animal trail, and on that trail, the fresh tracks of a Gray Fox.

So I came back the next day and I was walking by that same place, when again, this time from behind me, I heard the same wren call, and again I went in there and found fresh fox tracks. So I began to realize that the wren was giving its alarm call whenever the Gray Fox sneaked away from me.

I saw this as an opportunity to get close to the gray fox, so the next day I walked down the trail, and spooked the fox out of his usual hiding place. He sneaked through the place where the wrens were hiding, and the wrens gave their alarm, but instead of walking in the direction that I normally did, I doubled back on myself.

I crept over to the place where I knew the fox was headed judging by his patterns from the two days before. I set myself up in a good place where I could see down over the edge of the hill. Sure enough, coming from the place where the wrens had just alarmed, looking over his shoulder and moving in a sneaky posture, was the Gray Fox, and he was using the tree roots as his cover.

That’s how I learned that songs out of context can sometimes be alarms. Don’t always think that alarms are limited only to call notes.