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RE: Research Project needs Chickadee and Tit recordings

Subject: RE: Research Project needs Chickadee and Tit recordings
From: "Kevin Colver" <>
Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 22:05:50 -0600
Doug wrote:

"I've been toying with hummingbird vocalizations and find some very 
interesting structure - syntax, if you will, in their agonistic chatter.

The more I explore, the more I find that there is at least the
appearance 
and possibility of complex, abstract communication/information in many 
birds' "chatter". The songs and simple calls we are all familiar with
are 
"blunt force" communication - simple, direct, to the point. The real 
intimate stuff is in the chatter and subsong, I find."

Out jogging last week I came across a pair of Lark sparrows, one singing
the standard complex song with the exception that it was so faint I
could barely hear it at 10 meters.  It was obviously meant only for the
ears of his mate foraging next to him.

As I listen to the house finches in my backyard there is all kinds of
chatter, partial song, and interaction.

I am beginning to think that for many birds the concept of "songs and
calls" is a gross simplification, just as it would be if our
vocalizations were thus described.  I think that birds have a
"vocabulary."  We have barely touched the threshold of understanding
what bird vocalizations mean.

Kevin Colver
"Everything is always more complicated than we think it is."




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