Dictionary Definition
birdcall
Noun
1 the characteristic sound produced by a bird; "a
bird will not learn its song unless it hears it at an early age"
[syn: call, birdsong, song]
2 a device for imitating a birdcall
User Contributed Dictionary
English
See also
Extensive Definition
- "Bird song" redirects here. For other uses, see Birdsong.
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In
non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are
melodious to the human ear. In ornithology, bird 'songs'
are often distinguished from shorter sounds, which may be termed
'calls'. Common onomatopoeic English words for bird calls and songs
include chirp, chirrup, cluck, and quack.
Definition
The distinction between songs and calls is based
upon inflection, length, and context. Songs are longer and more
complex and are associated with courtship and mating, while calls
tend to serve such functions as alarms or keeping members of a
flock in contact. Other
authorities such as Howell and Webb (1995) make the distinction
based on function, so that short vocalisations such as those of
pigeons and even non-vocal sounds such as the drumming of woodpeckers and the
"winnowing" of snipes'
wings in display flight are considered songs. Still others require
song to have syllabic diversity and temporal regularity akin to the
repetitive and transformative patterns which define music.
Bird song is best developed in the order
Passeriformes. Most
song is emitted by male rather than female birds. Song is usually
delivered from prominent perches although some species may sing
when flying. Some groups are nearly voiceless, producing sounds
only mechanically, such as the storks, which clatter their bills.
In some manakins (Pipridae), the
males have evolved several mechanisms for mechanical sound
production, including mechanisms for stridulation not unlike
those in the insects.
The production of sounds by mechanical means as
opposed to the use of the syrinx has been termed variously
instrumental music by Charles
Darwin, mechanical sounds and more recently sonation. The term sonate has
been defined as the act of producing non-vocal sounds that are
intentionally modulated communicative signals, produced using
non-syringeal structures such as the bill, wings, tail, feet and
body feathers. Experiments also suggest that parasites and diseases
may directly affect song characteristics such as song rate, which
thereby act as reliable indicators of health. The song repertoire
also appears to indicate fitness in some species. The ability of
male birds to hold and advertise territories using song also
demonstrates their fitness.
Communication through bird calls can be between
individuals of the same species or even across species. Mobbing
calls are used to recruit individuals in an area where an owl or
other predator may be present. These calls are characterized by
wide frequency spectra, sharp onset and termination, and
repetitiveness which are common across species and are believed to
be helpful to other potential "mobbers" by being easy to locate.
The alarm calls of most species, on the other hand, are
characteristically high-pitched making the caller difficult to
locate.
Individual birds may be sensitive enough to
identify each other through their calls. Many birds that nest in
colonies can locate their chicks using their calls. Calls are
sometimes distinctive enough for individual identification even by
human researchers in ecological studies.
Many birds engage in duet calls. In some cases
the duets are so perfectly timed as to appear almost as one call.
This kind of calling is termed antiphonal duetting. Such duetting
is noted in a wide range of families including quails, bushshrikes, babblers such as the scimitar
babblers, some owls and parrots. In territorial songbirds,
birds are more likely to countersing when they have been aroused by
simulated intrusion into their territory. This implies a role in
intraspecies aggressive competition.
Some birds are excellent mimics. In some tropical
species, mimics such as the drongos may have a role in the
formation of
mixed-species foraging flocks.
Some cave-dwelling species, including Oilbird and
Swiftlets (Collocalia and
Aerodramus
spp.), use audible sound (with the majority of sonic location
occurring between 2 and 5 kHz ) to echolocate
in the darkness of caves.
The bird hearing range goes from below
50 Hz (infrasound) to above 20 kHz (ultrasound)
with maximum sensitivity between 1 and 5 kHz. The range of
frequencies at which birds call in an environment varies with the
quality of habitat and the ambient sounds. It has been suggested
that narrow bandwidths, low frequencies, low-frequency modulations,
and long elements and inter-element intervals should be found in
habitats with complex vegetation structures (which would absorb and
muffle sounds) while high frequencies, broad bandwidth,
high-frequency modulations (trills), and short elements and
inter-elements may be expected in habitats with herbaceous cover.
It has been hypothesized that the available frequency range is
partitioned and birds call so that overlap between different
species in frequency and time is reduced. This idea has been termed
the "acoustic niche". Birds sing louder and at a higher pitch in
urban areas, where there is ambient low-frequency noise.
Language
The language of the birds has long been a topic for anecdote and speculation. That calls have meanings that are interpreted by their listeners has been well demonstrated. Domestic chicken have distinctive alarm calls for aerial and ground predators, and they respond to these alarm calls appropriately. However a language has, in addition to words, structures and rules. Studies to demonstrate the existence of language have been difficult due to the range of possible interpretations. Research on parrots by Irene Pepperberg is claimed to demonstrate the innate ability for grammatical structures, including the existence of concepts such as nouns, adjectives and verbs. Studies on starling vocalizations have also suggested that they may have recursive structures.Those who set forth the existence of Bird
Language in Tracking_(hunting)
and Naturalist
studies, denote 5 basic types of sound: Call, Song, Territorial,
Fledgling, and Alarm. The first four are denoted as "baseline"
behavior, relating to the relative safety and calm of the birds,
while the later denotes the awareness of a threat or predator.
Within each of these basic categories, the particular of meanings
of these sounds are based upon inflection, body language and
contextual setting.
Neurophysiology
The main brain areas involved in bird song are:- Anterior forebrain pathway (vocal learning) = LMAN, lateral part of the magnocellular nucleus of anterior neostriatum (homologue to mammalian basal ganglia); Area X, basal ganglia; DLM, medial nucleus of dorsolateral thalamus.
- Song production pathway = HVC, a letter based name; RA, robust nucleus of archistriatum; xXII, tracheosyringeal part of the hypoglossal nucleus.
Both pathways show sexual
dimorphism, with the male producing song most of the time. It
has been noted that injecting testosterone in non-singing
female birds can induce growth of the HVC and thus production of
song.
Birdsong production is generally thought to start
at the nucleus uvaeformis of the thalamus with signals emanating
along a pathway that terminates at the syrinx. The pathway from the
thalamus leads to the interfacial nucleus of the nidopallium to the
HVC, and then to RA, the dorso-lateral division of the medial
thalamus and to the tracheosyringeal nerve.
The gene FOXP2, defects of
which affect both speech and comprehension of language in humans,
becomes more active in the striatal region of songbirds during the
time of song learning.
Recent research in birdsong learning has focused
on the Ventral
Tegmental Area (VTA), which sends a dopamine input to the
para-olfactory lobe and Area X, LMAN and the ventrolateral medulla.
Other researchers have explored the possibility that HVc
is responsible for syllable production, while the robust nucleus of
the arcopallium, the primary song output nucleus, may be
responsible for syllable sequencing and production of notes within
a syllable.
Learning
The songs of different species of birds vary, and are more or less characteristic of the species. In modern-day biology, bird song is typically analysed using acoustic spectroscopy. Species vary greatly in the complexity of their songs and in the number of distinct kinds of song they sing (up to 3000 in the Brown Thrasher); in some species, individuals vary in the same way. In a few species such as starlings and mockingbirds, songs imbed arbitrary elements learned in the individual's lifetime, a form of mimicry (though maybe better called "appropriation" [Ehrlich et al.], as the bird does not pass for another species). As early as 1773 it was established that birds learnt calls and cross-fostering experiments were able to force a Linnet Acanthis cannabina to learn the song of a skylark Alauda arvensis. In many species it appears that although the basic song is the same for all members of the species, young birds learn some details of their songs from their fathers, and this variations build up over generations to form dialects.Birds learn songs early in life with
sub-vocalizations that develop into renditions of adult songs.
Zebra
Finches, the most popular species for birdsong research,
develop a version of a familiar adult's song after 20 or more days
from hatch. By around 35 days, the chick will have learned the
adult song. The early song is "plastic" or variable and it takes
the young bird two or three months to perfect the "crystallized"
song (which is less variable) of sexually mature birds.
Research indicates birds' acquisition of song is
a form of motor
learning that involves regions of the basal
ganglia. Models of bird-song motor learning are sometimes used
as models for how humans learn speech. In some species such as
zebra finches, learning of song is limited to the first year; they
are termed 'age-limited' or 'close-ended' learners. Other species
such as the canaries can develop new songs even as sexually mature
adults; these are termed 'open-ended' learners.
Researchers have hypothesized that learned songs
allow the development of more complex songs through cultural
interaction, thus allowing intraspecies dialects that help birds
stay with their own kind within a species, and it allows birds to
adapt their songs to different acoustic environments.
Auditory feedback in bird song learning
Early experiments by Thorpe
in 1954 showed the importance of a bird being able to hear a
tutor's song. When birds are raised in isolation, away from the
influence of conspecific males, they
still sing. While the song they produce resembles the song of a
wild bird, it lacks the complexity and sounds distinctly different.
The importance of the bird being able to hear himself sing in the
sensorimotor period was later discovered by Konishi. Birds
deafened before the song crystallization period went on to produce
very different songs from the wild type.
These findings lead scientists to believe there could be a specific
part of the brain dedicated to this specific type of learning. The
main focus in the search for the neuronal aspect of bird song
learning was guided by the song template hypothesis. This
hypothesis is the idea that when a bird is young he memorizes the
song of his tutor. Later, during the development phase as an adult,
he matches his own trial vocalizations using auditory feedback to
an acoustic template in the brain. Based on this information, he
adjusts his song if needed. To find this “song template,”
experimenters lesioned
certain parts of the brain and observed the effects.
- Lesioning the song production pathway (RA, xXII or HVc) in the brain creates serious effects on song production in all birds.
- Lesions parts of the anterior forebrain pathway, or vocal learning pathway, DLM and area X, result in deficits in learning in all birds.
- Lesioning LMAN, located in the anterior forebrain pathway in young birds disrupts song production.
- Lesioning LMAN on an adult bird shows no effect.
- Lesioning LMAN on an adult canary (an "open-ended learner" species, which can learn songs later in life) shows a progressive deterioration of song.
These results show that the area known as LMAN is
the only brain area in the pathway that shows some plasticity
and further studies have shown that this area of the brain responds
best to the bird’s own song.This neuroplasticity is vital for a
bird being able to learn a song. The ability to make small
adjustments based on auditory feedback is needed for the complexity
of these beautiful songs. Just like any musician, birds need to
practice and be able to evaluate what their song sounds like and
what it's supposed to sound like in order to get it right.
To complete the picture on bird song learning,
experimenters needed to discover the true plasticity of the brain.
While deafening and creating auditory isolation were good
techniques for discovering basic characteristics about the brain, a
reversible procedure was needed to investigate further. The
solution was found in disruption of the auditory feedback, or what
a bird hears. A computer is able to capture the song of a singing
bird and play back portions of its song, or selectively play back a
certain syllable while the bird is signing. The computer is
basically playing the age old trick of repeating whatever the bird
sings, the "stop copying me" game. This creates such a disruption
that an adult bird will start to decrystallize its song, which
includes a loss of spectral and
temporal rigidity characteristic of adult song. It reverts back to
the song it started singing with, before any learning took place.
Furthermore, when the feedback was stopped, the birds slowly
recovered their original song, something that was unheard of. These
results show that there is a fair amount of plasticity retained in
the brain, even for close-ended learners. This new found plasticity
in adult birds and the results on the plasticity of LMAN (shown
above) combine into a model for bird song learning (diagram coming
soon).
Identification and systematics
The specificity of bird calls has been used extensively for species identification. The calls of birds have been described using words or nonsense syllables. These are subject to imagination and vary greatly; a well-known example is the White-throated Sparrow's song, given in Canada as O sweet Canada Canada Canada and in New England as Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody (also Where are you Frederick Frederick Frederick?). In addition to nonsense words, grammatically correct phrases have been constructed as likenesses of the vocalizations of birds. For example, the Barred Owl produces a motif which some bird guides describe as Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? with the emphasis placed on you. The use of spectrographs to visualize bird song was first introduced by W. H. Thorpe. These visual representations are also called sonograms or sonagrams. Some recent field guides for birds use sonograms to document the calls and songs of birds. The sonogram is objective, unlike descriptive phrases, but proper interpretation requires experience. Sonograms can also be roughly converted back into sound.Bird song is an integral part of bird courtship
and is a pre-zygotic isolation mechanism involved in the process of
speciation. Many
allopatric sub-species show differences in calls. These differences
are sometimes minute, often detectable only in the sonograms. Song
differences in addition to other taxonomic attributes have been
used in the identification of new species. The use of calls has led
to proposals for splitting of species complexes such as those of
the Mirafra
Bushlarks.
Bird song and music
Some musicologists believe that birdsong has had a large influence on the development of music. Although the extent of this influence is impossible to gauge, it is sometimes easy to see some of the specific ways composers have integrated birdsong with music.There seem to be three general ways musicians or
composers can be affected by birdsong: they can be influenced or
inspired (consciously or unconsciously) by birdsong, they can
include intentional imitations of bird song in a composition, or
they can incorporate recordings of birds into their works.
One early example of a composition that imitates
birdsong is Janequin's "Le
Chant Des Oiseaux", written in the 16th century. Other composers
who have quoted birds or have used birdsong as a compositional
springboard include Biber
(Sonata Representativa), Beethoven (Sixth
Symphony), Wagner (Siegfried)
and the jazz musicians Paul Winter
(Flyway) and Jeff Silverbush (Grandma Mickey).
The twentieth-century French composer Olivier
Messiaen composed with birdsong extensively. His Catalogue
d'Oiseaux is a seven-book set of solo piano pieces based upon
birdsong. His orchestral piece Réveil des Oiseaux is composed
almost entirely of birdsong. Many of his other compositions,
including
Quatuor pour la fin du temps, similarly integrate
birdsong.
The Italian composer Ottorino
Respighi, with his The Pines of
Rome (1923–1924), may have been the first to compose a piece of
music that calls for pre-recorded birdsong. A few years later,
Respighi wrote Gli Uccelli ("The birds"), based on Baroque pieces
imitating birds.
The Finnish composer Einojuhani
Rautavaara in 1972 wrote an orchestral piece of music called
Cantus
Arcticus (Opus 61, dubbed Concerto for Birds and Orchestra)
making extensive use of pre-recorded birdsongs from Arctic regions,
such as migrating swans.
The American jazz musician Eric Dolphy
sometimes listened to birds while he practiced flute. He claimed to
have incorporated bird song into some of his improvisational music.
In the psychedelic
era of the 1960s and 1970's, many rock bands included sound
effects in their recordings. Birds were a popular choice. The
English band Pink Floyd
included bird sound effects in many of the songs from their 1969
albums
More and Ummagumma (for
example,
Grantchester Meadows). Similarly, the English singer Kate Bush
incorporated bird sound effects into much of the music on her 2005
album, Aerial.
The Music hall
artist Ronnie
Ronalde has gained notoriety for his whistling imitations of
birds and for integrating birdsong with human song. His songs 'In A
Monastery Garden' and 'If I Were A Blackbird' include imitations of
the blackbird, his
"signature bird."
The French composer
François-Bernard Mâche has been credited with the creation of
zoomusicology, the
study of the music of animals. His essay Musique, mythe, nature, ou
les Dauphins d'Arion (1983) includes a study of
"ornitho-musicology", in which he speaks of "animal musics" and a
longing to connect with nature.
The German DJ, techno music
producer and naturalist Dominik
Eulberg is an avid bird
watcher, and several tracks by him prominently feature sampled
bird sounds and even are titled after his favourite
specimens.
In 2007, The CT Collective issed two free albums
devoted to music made using bird songs (one with human interaction,
one without). The project was co-ordinated by looping musician
Nick
Robinson
Bird song and poetry
Bird song is a popular subject in poetry. Famous poems inspired by bird song include Percy Bysshe Shelley's To a Skylark ("Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!/Bird thou never wert") and Gerard Manley Hopkins' Sea and Skylark. Much of J. R. R. Tolkien's work is centered on birdsong and its relation to Middle-earth inhabitants.See also
Cited reference
External links
- Large collection of audio bird calls (Arizona)
- African Grey Parrot talking Language
- Community online database of bird song from Central and South America 15000 recordings of 3050 species as of December, 2007.
- Archive of 150,000 recordings of over 8,000 bird species.
- Listen to Nature includes article "The Language of Birds"
- Bird songs in movies: an unnatural history Humor piece on soundtrack errors
- How do Birds Sing? The mechanics and anatomy of bird song production
- Bioacoustic Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology distributes a number of different free bird song synthesis & analysis programs.
- Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is the world's largest collection of animal sounds and associated video.
- Male shama songs and mimic of sounds
- Audio Pitch Tracer Accurate transcription of clean recordings of bird vocalisations to midi
- Chain Tape Collective music using bird sounds
birdcall in Danish: Fuglesang
birdcall in German: Vogelgesang
birdcall in Spanish: Canto de las aves
birdcall in Esperanto: Birdkanto
birdcall in French: Vocalisation des
oiseaux
birdcall in Icelandic: Fuglasöngur
birdcall in Dutch: Vogelzang
(ornithologie)
birdcall in Polish: Ptasi śpiew
birdcall in Swedish: Fågelläte