The Mad Scientist And The Dawn Chorus

How to Listen to a Song

When you first listen to a dawn chorus in full swing, the sheer onslaught of bird song can be overwhelming. How does anyone start to pick apart the chirps, whistles, and trills that are echoing out of the woods? The answer, of course, is to concentrate on one bird at a time – and that approach holds true when you're trying to learn individual songs, too.

Don't try to memorize each entire song you hear. Instead, focus on one quality of the sound at a time. Many birds have a characteristic rhythm, pitch, or tone to their song. Once you zero in on it, you'll have a better sense of the bird's identity. When you combine these characters, you can narrow things down even further. Here are a few examples:

Rhythm

Get used to a bird's characteristic tempo. Marsh Wrens sing in a hurry, while White-throated Sparrows are much more leisurely.

Tone

The tone of a bird's song is sometimes hard to describe, but it can be very distinctive. To begin with, pay attention to whether a bird's voice is a clear whistle, harsh or scratchy, liquid and flute-like, or a clear trill. If you can remember the quality of a bird's voice, it can give you a clue to the bird's identity even if the bird doesn't sing the same notes every time.

Pitch

Most birds sing in a characteristic range, with smaller birds (like the Cedar Waxwing) typically having higher voices and larger birds (like the Common Raven) usually having deeper voices. Many bird songs change pitch, as in the Prairie Warbler's rising, buzzy song or the Canyon Wren's sweet descending whistles. Some birds are distinctive for having steady voices, like the Chipping Sparrow's trill.

Repetition

Some birds characteristically repeat syllables or phrases before moving on to a new sound. Northern Mockingbirds do this many times in a row. Though Brown Thrashers sound similar, they typically repeat only twice before changing to a new syllable.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology

“But señor,” he protested, pointing to the view. “We are alone here.”

Levine shook his head, annoyed. He had gone over all this with Diego, during the boat ride over. Once on the island, no speaking. No hair pomade, no cologne, no cigarettes. All food sealed tightly in plastic bags. Everything packed with great care. Nothing to produce a smell, or make a sound. He had warned Diego, again and again, of the importance of all these precautions.

But now it was obvious that Diego had paid no attention. He didn’t understand. Levine poked Diego angrily, and shook his head again.

Diego smiled. “Señor, please. There are only birds here.”

At that moment, they heard a deep, rumbling sound, an unearthly cry that arose from somewhere in the forest below them. After a moment, the cry was answered, from another part of the forest.

Diego’s eyes widened.

Levine mouthed: Birds?

from “The Lost World”
by Michael Crichton

If birds are descendents of dinosaurs
and birds chirp and make bird calls and bird songs,
maybe dinosaurs made little noises
and created compound structured noises
and created, too, long beautiful songs.

Vocalizations of extinct creatures.

Can anything be more lost than lost songs
of animals that are lost, turned to stone?

If birds are descendents of dinosaurs
and calls are genetically encoded
then outside now a sparrow or robin
may be perched singing a similar call
that has been sung by millions of creatures
for millions of generations and years.

If birds are descendents of dinosaurs
and songs are learned but built on neural paths
genetically predisposed to some sounds
and not others, some rhythms not others,
then outside now a sparrow or robin
may hear a sound heard for millions of years—
thunder and an echo or rain on leaves
or a flowing stream splashing on a rock—
and be taught the same song, sing the same song,
that has been sung by millions of creatures
for millions of generations and years.

Wouldn’t a mad scientist be crazy
to think that he could analyze bird songs—
recordings made from all over the world
and digitized at high resolution—
using high technology software tools
that mine data and recognize patterns
and make decisions with fuzzy logic
and reconstruct the fractal heart and soul
somewhere inside the chirps and calls and songs
and play it—that lost but found heart and soul—
through speakers designed by computers, too,
that reproduce the whole spectrum of sound
and sing to the dinosaurs in the rocks,
dinosaurs that seem lost though they’re right here,
serenade their stone hearts and their stone souls,
make their stone hearts and their stone souls vibrate
and guide them note by note out of the rocks
and into our world that used to be theirs?

Can anything be more lost than lost songs
of animals that are lost, turned to stone?

Wouldn’t a mad scientist be crazy
to believe he could sing to dinosaurs
and bring the dinosaurs out of the rocks
and into our world? But what if he could?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


“S” Is For “Sparrow”


Merica Uns On Unkin


Creatures Surrounded By Stone


The Built World Redux—Art And Souvenir


The Craft Of Wreckage



The Mad Scientist Is Always Laughing


The Girl Who Talks To Dinosaurs