DAWN CHORUS DAYmusic; ambience: Dawn ChorusMay fifth has been named International Dawn Chorus Day, in appreciation of the Spring mornings when the Sun peaks over the horizon, and birds everywhere erupt into song. The music is beautiful to humans, but how does this chorus sound to the birds themselves? I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.”If you look around in the animal kingdom for anything like dialects in the sounds that animals make, the strange thing is that, apart from whales and dolphins, by far the best place to look is in songbirds.” Peter Marler is a scientist with the University of California at Davis. He tells us that even in this mass of calls, birds are able to garner specific information by listening for certain characteristics of individual songs.”So these birds, as they’re listening to one another, can tell the species of the singer. They can determine its local dialect, and they can also use individual features that are present in the song as a way of identifying each of their close neighbors.”Recent studies by Stewart Hulse at Johns Hopkins University have shown that some birds are especially adept at identifying their own species’s song. But not all birds listen for the same characteristics. Some have perfect pitch–they identify the frequency of a single note, and use it to distinguish that call. Other types of birds don’t listen for the different pitches, but for the length of the pauses between them. However they do it, the birds are remarkably accurate. Prof. Hulse discovered that starlings, when played tapes of several different birds singing at once, could differentiate their own species’ call about eighty percent of the time. See if you can identify one particular call in this dawn chorus. We’ve been listening to a program from our archives. Im Jim Metzner and this is thePulse of the Planet.I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
DAWN CHORUS DAY
It’s the day to recognize birds’ remarkable singing abilities, but what about their equally remarkable listening?
Air Date:05/05/1997
Scientist:
Transcript:
DAWN CHORUS DAYmusic; ambience: Dawn ChorusMay fifth has been named International Dawn Chorus Day, in appreciation of the Spring mornings when the Sun peaks over the horizon, and birds everywhere erupt into song. The music is beautiful to humans, but how does this chorus sound to the birds themselves? I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet."If you look around in the animal kingdom for anything like dialects in the sounds that animals make, the strange thing is that, apart from whales and dolphins, by far the best place to look is in songbirds." Peter Marler is a scientist with the University of California at Davis. He tells us that even in this mass of calls, birds are able to garner specific information by listening for certain characteristics of individual songs."So these birds, as they're listening to one another, can tell the species of the singer. They can determine its local dialect, and they can also use individual features that are present in the song as a way of identifying each of their close neighbors."Recent studies by Stewart Hulse at Johns Hopkins University have shown that some birds are especially adept at identifying their own species's song. But not all birds listen for the same characteristics. Some have perfect pitch--they identify the frequency of a single note, and use it to distinguish that call. Other types of birds don't listen for the different pitches, but for the length of the pauses between them. However they do it, the birds are remarkably accurate. Prof. Hulse discovered that starlings, when played tapes of several different birds singing at once, could differentiate their own species' call about eighty percent of the time. See if you can identify one particular call in this dawn chorus. We've been listening to a program from our archives. Im Jim Metzner and this is thePulse of the Planet.I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.