Birdsong has been a fascination for me from an early age and back in about 1979/80 I made an effort to learn a lot of British bird songs from cassette recordings and subsequently went out and applied what I learned in the field. My favourite bird book of the last twenty years has been the first volume of the Sound Approach series, as I loved the way it drew attention and added value to some of the subtler things going on in everyday birds that surround us. Just to keep this short, I want to highlight an episode I had yesterday, connect it with something a friend sent me a couple of weeks ago, and ask the question whether anyone has had any similar experiences lately?
I was out birding on the north-east coast yesterday for the first time this spring, hoping the light onshore breezes might bring me a Marsh or a Blyth's Reed singing on the patch I used to frequent as a teenager. It wasn't to be; but I did have a very interesting encounter with a bird singing in a copse of trees where I found my first ever BB rarity (a Greenish Warbler) back in 1984. Those that know the song of Blyths Reed might recognise it as something sounding rather like a Song Thrush with a few Crested Lark call notes interspersed every now and again? Around 11am myself and a friend cocked our ears to listen to what we were pretty satisfied was a Song Thrush singing at moderate volume in some pretty dense canopy high above our heads. Usually at this time of year in N-E England most Song Thrush song is confined to the early morning and late evening, but after a minute of listening and not hearing any slow, sad Crested Lark-like notes we were ready to move on, until suddenly much to our surprise, the vocals morphed into a short sweet burst of unmistakable Blackcap-like notes!
Now, it had only been 10 days since a friend in London had blown my mind with a recording on WhatsApp of a Blackcap seen and heard doing so many imitations and with such a rhythm that it could easily have been mistaken for a Marsh Warbler! So although my friend and I had to wait ten minutes before we finally visually nailed our singing bird in the canopy, I'd already come to the conclusion it was going to be a Blackcap, despite its continuing propensity to offer 30 second snatches of almost perfect Song Thrush mimicry interspersed with 5 seconds pure Blackcap. And so it proved.
As well as 'subsong', 'plastic song' and 'typical song', the Sound Approach talks about late stage development song called 'crystallised song' and 'ultra crystallised' song. These last two types of song are especially associated with what might be termed 'high breeding' vocalisation, i.e. are very intense, complex song variations performed close to the nest and perhaps intensified by being in areas where many pairs are present? This could be one explanation for these two 'anomalous' variations encountered above. Another could be 'the observer effect'...in other words most of my observations of Blackcaps in the past fifteen years since the Sound Approach came out, have been in south-west England and Ireland where birds winter in decent numbers but don't necessarily breed so commonly in the areas I've been situated. In early spring therefore, I've heard a lot of 'sub' and 'plastic' song, as well as 'typical song', but haven't heard anywhere near as much wild variation as the two cases presented above.
Unfortunately I don't know how to transfer WhatsApp recordings to my computer, but I just wondered if anyone else had any thoughts on the above?
I was out birding on the north-east coast yesterday for the first time this spring, hoping the light onshore breezes might bring me a Marsh or a Blyth's Reed singing on the patch I used to frequent as a teenager. It wasn't to be; but I did have a very interesting encounter with a bird singing in a copse of trees where I found my first ever BB rarity (a Greenish Warbler) back in 1984. Those that know the song of Blyths Reed might recognise it as something sounding rather like a Song Thrush with a few Crested Lark call notes interspersed every now and again? Around 11am myself and a friend cocked our ears to listen to what we were pretty satisfied was a Song Thrush singing at moderate volume in some pretty dense canopy high above our heads. Usually at this time of year in N-E England most Song Thrush song is confined to the early morning and late evening, but after a minute of listening and not hearing any slow, sad Crested Lark-like notes we were ready to move on, until suddenly much to our surprise, the vocals morphed into a short sweet burst of unmistakable Blackcap-like notes!
Now, it had only been 10 days since a friend in London had blown my mind with a recording on WhatsApp of a Blackcap seen and heard doing so many imitations and with such a rhythm that it could easily have been mistaken for a Marsh Warbler! So although my friend and I had to wait ten minutes before we finally visually nailed our singing bird in the canopy, I'd already come to the conclusion it was going to be a Blackcap, despite its continuing propensity to offer 30 second snatches of almost perfect Song Thrush mimicry interspersed with 5 seconds pure Blackcap. And so it proved.
As well as 'subsong', 'plastic song' and 'typical song', the Sound Approach talks about late stage development song called 'crystallised song' and 'ultra crystallised' song. These last two types of song are especially associated with what might be termed 'high breeding' vocalisation, i.e. are very intense, complex song variations performed close to the nest and perhaps intensified by being in areas where many pairs are present? This could be one explanation for these two 'anomalous' variations encountered above. Another could be 'the observer effect'...in other words most of my observations of Blackcaps in the past fifteen years since the Sound Approach came out, have been in south-west England and Ireland where birds winter in decent numbers but don't necessarily breed so commonly in the areas I've been situated. In early spring therefore, I've heard a lot of 'sub' and 'plastic' song, as well as 'typical song', but haven't heard anywhere near as much wild variation as the two cases presented above.
Unfortunately I don't know how to transfer WhatsApp recordings to my computer, but I just wondered if anyone else had any thoughts on the above?