My own observations indicate that there is a large difference in how fixed human accents are from one person to the next. I suspect it is the same underlying thing that makes some people faster to pick up a new language than others.
Niels
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Question: Vocalizations and Species limits (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Mysticete
- Start date
Niels
pbjosh
missing the neotropics
Yeah I can tell new world psittacids to genus pretty well even when a bit out of practice. But telling some amazonas or pyrrhuras or big macaws apart in regions of sympatry is a whole ‘nother ball game and I have seen both “world class birders” and “expert local guides” be wrong as often as right in those cases.
lgonz1008
Well-known member
It depends on practice with location, possible candidates and the like. I do the same when guiding in Miami, it just depends on the likely targets and the difference in certain pitches.
For parrots though, their calls are clearly for communication between individuals/flocks over mating interest, so they fall well outside of the call affects speciation problem (don't think we have many if any reports of hybridization on the similarly related Psittacara parakeets in the South Florida or South California area, where multiple species often share the same region and flocks).
pbjosh
missing the neotropics
Is that actually known about calls, or is it our assumption?
In Southern California Red-crowned and Lilac-crowned Parrots are both feral and as I understand / have heard, are hybridizing. I would suspect the same if you had areas with Yellow-headed/Yellow-naped/that complex feral together.
There are plenty of regions in S America where multiple species occur together that I cannot tell by ear but they don’t seem to regularly hybridize.
So I am not discrediting your theory just asking if it’s a published research result or a supposition?
l_raty
laurent raty
Carrion and Hooded Crows were found to produce distinct vocalisations in the Alps (Palestrini & Rolando 1996 : https://doi.org/10.1080/00063659609461030).
(The corone-cornix contact zone in the Alps is a bit special, though, as it coincides with a rather abrupt ecotone, while other contact zones do not -- what happens there may not be generalizable to all contact zones.)
For gulls, not only the long calls may be super useful, even the shape of the bird while making the long calls may be of help (i.e. caspian gulls adopt the so-called albatross shape, contrary to the yellow-legged gulls).
lgonz1008
Well-known member
Sadly no publication on it, the lack of interest/research on the exotic parrots of South Florida is the leading cause why the species are not considered countable, even when they have better established populations than other exotics.
The observation of lack of hybridizing in these populations is mostly courtesy of observations by birders in the local community that we often encounter these Psittacara parakeet flocks that are usually single species, but when mixed, the different species tend to keep to themselves/other members of the same species within the flock.
Paul Clapham
Well-known member
I was born in Britain and lived there until I was 7, so I would have had a standard southern English accent then. I've lived in North America since then and now I have a 99% standard northern North American accent. Maybe the research has advanced since the 70's through.
Jon.Bryant
Well-known member
I am currently in New Zealand and trying to see the various parakeets. I have been struggling with Yellow-crowned, which to my ears sounds identical to Red-crowned. I have therefore resorted to trying to play the chatter call of Yellow-crowned, whenever I hear a Red/Yellow-crowned calling. Up until yesterday, I had no luck, then finally an immediate and great response, with two Yellow-crowned coming straight and directly in to playback - then returning when I tried playback a second time.
I suspect that all previous parakeets I had encountered were all Red-crowned (the commonest on Stewart Island), and that although humans think the two species sound identical, the two parakeets obviously do not!
It would be interesting to see if an AI app like Merlin can separate the two - alas NZ is not properly covered by the app at the moment.
It would also be interesting to see if other sympathetic species can be differentiated by AI - Forbes & Red-crowned or Antipodean and Reischek’s. From my research, I understand that all seem to be considered indistinguishable to human ears.
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Dave Boyle
Well-known member
I hear Red-crowned Parakeets every day but I only hear Yellow-crowned Parakeets once or twice a year & they always sound immediately different to me - they're obviously similar but I reckon once you've heard them both a few times you won't have a problem with them, and its easier on mainland New Zealand where it's pretty much just Yellow-crowned!
Jon.Bryant
Well-known member
You obviously have good ears! Can you describe the difference? I am thinking of slowing down recordings of the two species to see if that simplifies things for me. Then perhaps I can advance to normal speed recordings.
Off to Bluenine on the 1 Jan to hopefully see the last NZ parakeet (Malherbe’s) - that’s assuming I tick the green dots on Mangere as Forbes - apparently Forbes outnumber Red-crowned on the island by over 10 to 1 - as I saw at least 4 parakeets there, I suppose the odds they were all Red-crowned is 10,000 to 1! And from what the expedition crew say, unless you work for DOC, you probably can’t get any better views!
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Dave Boyle
Well-known member
Maybe the Red-crowned Parakeets in the Chathams sound different to New Zealand Red-crowned Parakeets but when I hear Yellow-crowneds, usually in the Marlborough Sounds, they sound slightly deeper & drier.
Forbe's sounds identical to Red-crowned to me but I've not heard Orange-fronted for years - there's been some stunning photos from the Brook's Sanctuary recently if you can't get to Blumine.
You're right, there's heaps more Forbe's on Mangere than Red-crowned but there are a lot of hybrids & some are very subtle, they can just have a few tiny red streaks in the crown - although Forbe's type birds are swamping the obvious hybrids I suspect, genetically, a Forbe's Parakeet nowadays isn't the same as a Forbe's Parakeet 50 years ago
Jon.Bryant
Well-known member
Thanks for the comments on sounds, I will give it another go, to see if I can tell the difference. When I tried recording YC, the results were not great, and I thought perhaps the call is less ‘loud’ than RC.
Thanks for the tip on the Brook’s Sanctuary, which I will try if we miss Malherbe’s on Blumine.
With regard to Forbe’s, one of our expedition crew took part in the last ‘intervention’ to save Forbe’s - the eradication (shooting) of red-crowned and hybrid birds on the island. He suggested that every year they assess the species by walking a transect, and if a certain KPI is reached, eradication takes place. Due to better habitat management/restoration of the forest, and the growing number of Forbe’s, he stated that hybridisation is now rare and that >90% of the birds are pure - intervention has therefore not happened for ten years or so.
As you say though, I suppose it is quite possible that pure looking birds may well now contain some Red-crowned DNA. However, It would be nice to get close enough to even have a chance to look for signs of hybridisation! - perhaps in the dim and distant future, DOC will permit landing on Mangere - and on South East island - we were lucky enough to (kind of) see a Black Robin on South East Island during a zodiac cruise, but for me it was a black movement against the black soil in a dark gully! Maybe one day a short stroll on a South East island boardwalk will provide a better experience (and with a landing fee, raise sum funds for more conservation in the Chathams).
Peter Kovalik
Well-known member
Lima, Rafael Dantas. 2024. The need for proper archiving and referencing of sound recordings in taxonomic studies of birds. Ornithology 141:ukad000. Published online 17 January 2024
The need for proper archiving and referencing of sound recordings in taxonomic studies of birds
Abstract
A survey of recent taxonomic studies of birds that included acoustic trait analyses reveals that most studies have not archived the sound recordings that support their conclusions, despite the current availability of online, publicly available collections of bird sounds. In addition, bird sound recordings have often been cited without unique accession numbers that permit unambiguous sample identification and in considerably less detail than other types of samples, such as museum specimens or genetic samples. Both this lack of data openness and the way acoustic samples have been cited undermine the methodological rigor that otherwise characterizes many of these studies, and much invaluable biological data are likely to be lost over time if bird sound recordings are not archived in long-term collections. I suggest that these problems can be easily addressed by embracing the open data movement and adopting some best practices that are widely used in other fields. Just as study skins and DNA sequences are required to be deposited in publicly available collections such as natural history museums and the GenBank, respectively, sound recordings used in taxonomic studies with acoustic trait analyses should be archived in publicly available collections as a condition for publication of associated results. Authors of taxonomic studies involving sounds should archive their sound recordings and provide unique accession numbers for sound recordings examined, and journals and reviewers should ensure that authors have done so. By embracing the open data movement, research studying avian acoustic signals is expected to become more transparent, reproducible, and useful.
The need for proper archiving and referencing of sound recordings in taxonomic studies of birds
Abstract
A survey of recent taxonomic studies of birds that included acoustic trait analyses reveals that most studies have not archived the sound recordings that support their conclusions, despite the current availability of online, publicly available collections of bird sounds. In addition, bird sound recordings have often been cited without unique accession numbers that permit unambiguous sample identification and in considerably less detail than other types of samples, such as museum specimens or genetic samples. Both this lack of data openness and the way acoustic samples have been cited undermine the methodological rigor that otherwise characterizes many of these studies, and much invaluable biological data are likely to be lost over time if bird sound recordings are not archived in long-term collections. I suggest that these problems can be easily addressed by embracing the open data movement and adopting some best practices that are widely used in other fields. Just as study skins and DNA sequences are required to be deposited in publicly available collections such as natural history museums and the GenBank, respectively, sound recordings used in taxonomic studies with acoustic trait analyses should be archived in publicly available collections as a condition for publication of associated results. Authors of taxonomic studies involving sounds should archive their sound recordings and provide unique accession numbers for sound recordings examined, and journals and reviewers should ensure that authors have done so. By embracing the open data movement, research studying avian acoustic signals is expected to become more transparent, reproducible, and useful.
