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Eastern Whipbird Antiphonal Song

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Subject: Eastern Whipbird Antiphonal Song
From: "Dean Portelli" <>
Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 01:31:53 +1000
Hi All,

Laurie Knight, Syd Curtis and Nicholas Talbot have made comment on the role of the sexes in the antiphonal song (introductory whistle usually followed by whipcrack and 2-3 note reply) of the Eastern Whipbird. Nicholas has informed me that he sexed the bird as it gave the introductory whistle and whipcrack (as Laurie suggested). The PhD student I was assisting was actually studying the role of the antiphonal song in this species. I don't think she ever observed a known female give the whipcrack (all birds were colour-banded and sexed by measurements), i.e. only males were seen to give this call (I make it clear here that you need to see the bird to be sure as pairs can be very close to each other when giving antiphonal song and it sounds like both whipcrack and reply come from the one bird, the timing can be so precise - it is mind-boggling when you watch a pair and it sounds like only one bird is making the noise!!! So it is easy for two birds to be present but only one bird visible). I also don't think she observed males giving the standard reply (i.e 'female' song). However, having said this I scanned through HANZAB and reference is made to apparent males being observed to give the reply and females being observed to give the introductory note and whipcrack (in fact this bird was apparently later shot and sexed as female - early days!), and the male to give the complete antiphonal song alone. Obviously, I haven't read the original sources and don't know how reliable these observations are (they are generally old and one wonders how they sexed the birds while observing them - except for the case where the bird was shot, but was it the bird that called or just presumed to be?. In any case I make the point that it is possible that the songs aren't 100% sex-specific, but are nearly so). As Syd points out in duetting species it is not always the male that initiates the duet. And Syd also rightly points out that often people tend to assume it is the male, this occurred with the Western Bristlebird (and some people continue to believe that the male initiates the duet) where it isn't actually known which sex gives the first song, and I doubt that it is even known for sure that the songs are sex-specific (as cited in HANZAB). I observed a presumed pair of WBB's once and made audio recordings(although it remains possible that a third or fourth bird was present- they are such buggers to keep track of in dense heath!!!!) examining the recordings spectrographically in conjunction with my notes on where the calls were coming from suggested to me that the individual birds gave both the first song (called 'A' song) and the reply song (called 'B'song), although never both types of song within a singing bout, and that they have a repertoire of types of these songs (i.e. different forms of 'A' song and 'B' song). However, I am the first to admit this data is VERY VERY sketchy (the birds were out of sight in the heath), but at least suggestive and a good basis for further study.

Cheers, Dean
Oh Yes, and I apologise for another LONG email - I really should practice being more succinct!. But I figure if people aren't interested they don't have to read it!.

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