Welcome back. . . last week we talked about a couple of good habits that will help you to boost your bird language skills – keeping a simple bird journal, and getting out to your sit spot, or at least outside, for a few quality minutes every day.
We also shared a deep listening exercise that can really open up new levels of bird language experience for you.
Today, let’s get into some more basics of bird language as we introduce the Five Voices of the Birds.
A Pattern Language
Bird language involves patterns of sound, motion, and intention. These interacting behaviors are always better interpreted when one understands “what would like to be happening” for a songbird – as in the absence of predators, intruders in nesting areas, or other kinds of disturbances to what we call “baseline”.
To understand baseline is to understand bird language in context. It’s similar to training to hear the quietest sounds in order to pick up the nuances of bird language. It just involves more senses, and a few more variables…
Learning the Baseline Harmony of Nature
Everything in nature is in motion. When we go to a sit spot regularly, we can begin to track and understand how the “baseline feeling” of a place shifts throughout each day and season. Each time of day, season, climate, ecosystem, and even weather condition has a unique style of baseline variation. The rhythms of the land and season are reflected in the activities of the wildlife that live there.
The level of activity that you expect to hear and see from songbirds during a springtime dawn chorus is much different than what you would normally experience during a summer afternoon. Behaviors and activities shift to maximize opportunity and conserve energy when needed. Yet, there are tendencies for each time and place.
You can learn about this variation by always asking, “What is the tendency for this time of day and season? What I am observing? What is the general activity level of the birds and animals right now? What conditions are present that feed into this pattern?”
In this way, you’ll gradually develop a sense of baseline throughout the seasons. It takes time and observation. This learning is so incredibly useful – because you’ll also begin to learn how to tell when an “event” happens that shatters the baseline experience, and your ability to interpret the bird language stories around you will grow that much further.
Next, let’s look at the five voices with this understanding of baseline as a backdrop to our learning.
Patterns in Bird Language
To make a simplified generalization about the patterns of bird language, we say that there are “five voices” of the birds in a universal sense.
Jon Young gets into great detail around these five voices in his books and audio resources (see the resources section at the bottom).
If you are interested in the science, check out Jon’s book, What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World, is filled with references from a variety of studies documenting many aspects of bird and animal language.
Dan Gardoqui is the science editor for the book and a bird language master, as well as an amazing teacher who has been working with Jon Young for over 25 years and today runs his own mentoring program—White Pine Programs, in Cape Neddick, Maine—to teach tracking and bird language.
Dan has created an amazing audio companion resource for learning the five voices of the birds working closely with sound recordist and author, Lang Elliot. The audio library is available for free online as a companion to the book.
These are all great resources for learning bird language. For now, we’ll pull out some general principles here to get you started.
The Five Voices of the Birds
Understanding the basics of these five patterns will allow you to see and hear deeper into the story of the landscape, even if you are on unfamiliar ground and don’t know the names of the birds around you.
The first four voices represent a baseline state of existence for the bird:
1) song,
2) companion calls,
3) juvenile begging calls, and
4) territorial aggression.
Although these behaviors may each contain their own types of survival stress, they are routine and indicate the bird is able to go about its daily patterns of life.
Feeding, preening, and sleeping would also fit into the baseline category. When birds see each other exhibiting these behaviors, a feeling of baseline harmony is established – i.e., there is no immediate known threat from a predator. Territorial displays, foraging, and other maintenance behaviors can continue for the moment.
A robin that hears a nearby robin singing may be “stressed” by needing to make a counter-song back to maintain territorial boundaries or attract a mate (and singing can take a lot of energy!).
The song state, however, belies a lack of predators that would force the robin to stop doing what is usual for it in that time of day and season. Sneak attacks can occur, however. More than one hyper-focused songster has been plucked off its perch by a deft raptor.
Like song, companion calls also indicate a state of baseline. A mated pair of birds will often call back and forth to each other as they feed, enabling them to maintain contact even if they are out of visual contact.
Begging calls made by juveniles to their parents also indicate a state of baseline, although the inexperienced youngsters may continue begging even in the vicinity of a predator!
Territorial aggression displays may have a harsh, alarm-like tone and a flurry of movement and activity. Yet, if two robins are fighting over a territory boundary, the song sparrow next door will likely react very little, continuing to feed.
So despite the extreme appearance, territorial aggression is still considered a baseline state, as it does not signal a general alarm across multiple species.
If, however, the robin suddenly hears a chickadee make its high pitched alarm, and a Flicker makes a sharp Clear! sound, and another robin makes a sharp Teek tut tut! , and then everything goes quiet, an accipiter (bird eating hawk) may be close at hand. Now, the baseline activity is broken off.
A state of alarm ensues. No one in the area within striking range of the hawk is singing or preening their feathers now (except for inexperienced juvenile birds, which may continue begging for food, leading the hawk right to their nest).
In fact, if the accipiter is perched and you knew where the Cooper’s hawk is exactly, and start listening to the sounds – or lack of sounds – of the other birds, you would start to notice some interesting patterns. This is actually the best way to learn bird language – by observing directly in the field. Here’s what you might hear and see:
Birds around the hawk will stop singing. The area will get very quiet. We call this shape of alarm a “pillow of silence.” No one wants to give away their position to the hunting hawk, and birds will cease or mute their activities until the threat is gone.
Birds out of immediate reach of the Cooper’s hawk might alarm. A robin 100 yards from the hawk might give some sharp “TEEK tut tut tut” calls. A flicker 100 yards way from the hawk might give its loud “Clear!” call. If the hawk is in flight, a chickadee may give its high thin whistle alarm (often given in close proximity, this ventriloquistic call is hard to locate due to its high pitch).
Other birds further out from the alarmers may hook up into a “sentinel” position, coming higher up and closer in to get a view of the situation. Sentinel is one of the most common alarm behaviors. You can even see it while driving as birds perch quietly on telephone lines, looking into the distance.
Beyond the sentinels, out of reach of danger, you will hear bird song continuing unabated.
This “pillow of silence,” surrounded by alarm calls, and then by sentinel behavior, is just one example of a “shape of alarm”. Each predator has a different alarm signature. One of the great adventures in learning bird language is beginning to decipher these different alarm shapes. We’ll share more next week about how wildlife tracking skills can help you in this quest.
Adventure of the Week:
-Get outside this week and start looking for shapes of alarm. Start by noticing in a broad sense which areas are quiet, which have song, and which if any have persistent, repetitive call notes occurring.
-Domestic animals such as dogs, or feral cats in park settings and backyards can provide rich opportunities for studying alarm shapes.
Do This:
-Draw a simple map of the terrain and note these areas on your map when you get home, and any sightings or guesses about who was causing alarm sequences to occur. Note how high up an alarm call occurred, and the level of tension or excitement you perceived in the call.
Stay tuned for more next week!