Introduction to Bird Song

Intro

Learning bird song is a personal venture, in that we all listen and learn sound in different ways.
Think about your own approach to learning the lyrics to a new song, it doesn’t always come straight away but the more you listen, the more you learn.

So the challenge below, is to make your own connections to each bird song, and you can do this by breaking it down in ways we can relate to. For example, a certain section of song might remind you of something similar or it might just make you feel a certain way.

Why Birds Sing

It’s important to understand firstly why birds sing, which can also help distinguish why bird ‘song’ is different to bird ‘calls’. Both are forms of communication but bird calls usually come with a very specific message, which are usually short, sharp and ‘to the point’. There are many sociable calls are not designed to be heard by us, they are designed to be heard close up and personal with other birds. The kind we usually hear are either alarm calls for predators, or social interactions.
A birds song serves the purpose of defending territories and attracting a mate, and in order to be effective at doing this, it needs to show strength, intelligence, resilience and passion. This is why songs are often loud, complex, variable and often go on for a long time. This comes at the cost of energy, which is vitally important to any bird in a world when food availability is as predictable as the weather and there’s always competition.

Some birds also have something called a ‘sub-song’ which is more of a passive aggressive song which isn’t loud, it’s usually softer but also full of little details that to us sound like gibberish but to another bird in the bush, conveys much more information. Sometimes a ‘sub-song’ can be more important, after all if you’ve attracted a mate from far way with your loud and powerful song but don’t really have the skills to pull off a compelling sub-song, then she may not be interested after all.

It’s the male that usually does all the singing in most species, but there are cases where the female can also sing and a good example of this can be found in European Robin’s, especially throughout the winter when the purpose of the song is to defend territory for food, rather than for breeding.

How to analys Bird song

Unless the bird is singing a very simplistic song (2-3 repetitive notes), it’s always advised to listen to as much of the song as you can before drawing any conclusions, as part of a birds song, doesn’t always paint the full picture, just like listening to the verse of a song without hearing the chorus.

Give it time and listen out for more than one aspect of the song. These single aspects can be indicators in their own right, but the more aspects considered from the list below, the greater chance you will learn the overall structure of the more complex songs.

• Pitch / Range / Volume - These three often come hand in hand, as the range of a birds song can be from low to high pitch and can increase and decrease in volume, but there usually is usually a theme or overall average to the song. Sometimes the pitch of the bird can give an indication of the birds size.

• Tone - This is more a musical term that’s not always easy to put into words, but here are a few examples of what a birds tone might sound like: warm, smooth, harsh, gritty, fluty, thin, thick, all of which are subjective because we hear things in different ways, but this is one of the most important factors.

• Phrases / Tempo - Speed can vary throughout the birds performance but some species delivery much faster tempo trills, warbles and flurries, so its important to note in combination with other indicators.

Robin

When to hear: All year around, but the winter song is slightly less progressive and glamorous than their spring song.
Pitch / Range / Volume: Moderate range from mid-high to very high pitched making it too high to whistle.
Tone: Generally Bright, Jolly but also dissonant.
Phrases / Tempo: Each phrase is well spaces, usually has themed 1-3 high pitched notes followed by a fast flurry of gibberish that’s complex but still pleasant on the ears.

Overview: Melodic but mostly ‘rolled over, high pitched gibberish’. As a result its harder to interpret the melodies as the are often too high pitch to whistle, but they are still relatable and pleasant to listen to with the acceptation of dissonant notes where two notes are sang at the same time but they don’t harmonise.

Blackbird

When to hear: March - October, will sometimes sing earlier or later in the year depending on temperatures but March-April is their peak performance.
Pitch / Range / Volume: Wide range from medium low to very high pitched. Generally within human whistle range, quite mellow moderate volume.
Tone - Fluty, well rounded tonality that’s relatable to the human whistle with bright overtones.
Phrases / Tempo: Phrases are well spaced and the general tempo is relaxed, as if each note is well thought out.

Overview: Melodic, Fluty with some repetitive phrases Long Pauses between phrases

Mistle Thrush

When to hear: February - September
Pitch / Range / Volume: Very Shallow range that hangs around the lower pitch of blackbird, without the fancy high pitched trills.
Tone: Fluty, warm tone
Phrases / Tempo: Phrases consist of slow tempo, short melodies.

Overview: Shallow, slow paced melodies that are well spaced and easy relatable.

Song Thrush

When to hear: March - September
Pitch / Range / Volume: Very wide range that hangs around the upper pitch of blackbird, with even more complex trills and loud outbursts. High energy, high volume.
Tone: Explosive smooth tone with plenty of percussive trills.
Phrases / Tempo: Phrases consist of fast tempo bursts of repetitive melodies, repeated 3-6 times before moving onto the next and not giving much time between each phrase, giving it more of a linear feel and tempo.

Overview: Overall high energy, explosive and repetative simplistic melodies with more complex high pitched trills.

Greefinch

When to hear: March - July
Pitch / Range / Volume: High pitch, Shallow Range, Quiet Volume
Tone: A husky wheeze and with chirpy tones
Phrases / Tempo: - Wheezing song is very simple repeats of cascading husky wheeze sound which is very unique to this species. They do also have a more complex song that consists of repetitive rattles a high pitch fluty repetitive notes.

Iconic species that don’t need much explanation