BirdNote®
Why Birds Sing
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote!
[From the ‘50s pop song - “Why Do Birds Sing?”]
Why do birds sing? I wonder about this every spring. Especially when I hear a Black-headed Grosbeak scat-singing. [Black-headed Grosbeak song] The question has been around a long time, and many have taken a crack at it – ancient philosophers, Romantic poets, Charles Darwin, even Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers [Reprise pop song]. We can narrow the question a bit: what is it about spring that incites birds to sing? [Black-headed Grosbeak song]
Frankie Lymon was on the right track [Reprise pop song very briefly]. Modern science still ties spring bird song to the romantic urge. Longer hours of light in spring stimulate a male bird’s hormones, in turn inciting it to sing. And singing attracts females.
Here’s what some of the lucky female birds get to hear: [Fox Sparrow, Black-capped Chickadee, Fox Sparrow, HouseFinch, Black-capped Chickadee, House Finch]
[Black-headed Grosbeak]
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Song of the Black-capped Chickadee recorded by Naturesound, M. Stewart
Other featured bird songs provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Black-headed Grosbeak recorded by Thomas G. Sander; Fox Sparrow recorded by L.J. Peyton, Black-capped Chickadee; House Finch recorded by G.A. Keller.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org March 2018/2020 Narrator: Michael Stein
ID# spring-05-2008-03-07- spring-05b-2009-03-27-