![]() Below is an example of a wren spectrogram from the BirdScope article.Īs you might imagine, some songs are harder to sing than others, and many scientists think birds respond to degree of difficulty in a rival’s or potential mate’s song. The wren sings precise repeats of several different phrases, all within a couple of seconds. It displays the complexity of the ending trills. ![]() It show 4 trills where both sides of the bird’s syrinx, or voicebox, vibrates to sing different notes in rapid alternating patterns. It samples a wren song one millisecond at a time. Frequency of sound is on the vertical axis. How does one extract that information for study? Notice the amazing amount of frequency information packed into the song. The second plays it at 1/4 speed for comparison. The first one plays the wren song at regular speed. The song of the House Wren article is interesting. Part way down the article on the right side of the page you will find two audio recording controls, the same as linked here. If a Swamp Sparrow can claim its turf with a simple trill if an Eastern Phoebe can woo mates with a scratchy “fee-bee,” then what is the extravagant fuss of a male House Wren all about? After five years of research I’m still not sure I know-the wrens’ songs are just so complex-but I’ve learned a lot about sound and song in the process. But as a graduate student at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, I also wonder why they do it. ![]() Just the mechanics of how a half-ounce bird can make this much sound fascinate me. The BirdScope story describes an analysis of the frequency spectrum for the House Wren song. Wrens are one of the most vocal guests in our backyard, along with the Gray Catbird. That is 6,000 calls in a 10 hour day, 180,000 in a month of 30 days, or 1,080,000 calls in 6 months. I confirmed that claim using my own backyard observations. During lunch on the deck, I counted songs for several timed intervals and got basically the same result. The author claimed males can sing 600 times an hour. The Spring 2012 issue of BirdScope from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology had an article about the song of the House Wren. I wrote about his attempts to fill it with twigs in this recent post. This one occupies the house attached to our back deck. For their small size, they make a lot of cheerful sound. Their singing will seem non-stop for the next six months. The first tiny House Wrens returned last week.
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