Why do birds sing?
For birds, spring songs are a very serious and important matter. Only males sing. In the spring, a little warbler will return home and immediately declare at the top of his voice: “I’m here! I flew in and took over the site. Here I will hunt insects, raise chicks, and no one dares to settle nearby, otherwise they will get a beating.”
With its song, the bird seems to establish an invisible, but audible boundary of the area. And if the song of a rival relative is heard nearby, the owner of the site, fluffing his feathers, will rush at him and drive him away. And other birds - please! - settle at least two steps away. After all, other birds have different food and nesting material, so there is nothing to argue about with such neighbors.
Bird song also has another purpose. The future father, having found a suitable place for the nest, begins to call the mother of his future chicks with a ringing song. It’s as if he’s saying: “I’m here. I found perfect place for the nest, there is a lot of food here. Fly here quickly. We will build a nest together and raise the chicks.”
The future bird mother will hear one song, then another, and whichever one seems most beautiful to her, she will fly to this song.
But everyone sings the song in their own way. In the spring, gray crows no longer croak so piercingly, their voice becomes softer, such sounds appear in it, as if everyone wants to say something affectionate, but it just doesn’t work out.
But the woodpecker can’t sing; he often drums his beak on a dry branch.
Although the sandpiper snipe has a large beak, its voice is weak and there is no song. “Cheke-cheke-cheke,” the snipe chattered. Is this a song? If you don’t have a good voice, it doesn’t matter, the snipe has managed to sing with its tail. It will fly over the forest, and suddenly its wings will bend, its tail will spread and dive. This causes the oncoming air to hum in the tail feathers, and the result is a sound like a lamb bleating: “Bee-e-e.” It’s not for nothing that the snipe is nicknamed the “forest lamb.”
And storks cannot sing either. But they crack their beaks. Nobody can do that!
And the black grouse, the forest roosters - braids, boasting of their beauty and prowess in front of the speckled grouse, hiss. Yes, so loudly, as if a tightly inflated ball had been pierced. They will hiss, and then start jumping up, dancing and muttering: “Ur-gur-gur.” Listen to such a song, and it seems as if a cauldron is bubbling somewhere. It seethes and seethes and it will splash out and hiss on the hot stove. These songs are a challenge to fight.
Spring will end, the birds will start families, and then the songs will end. When hungry babies are squeaking in the nest, there is no time for songs. We need to get food. In addition, a song can give away a nest and attract predators. True, bird voices can be heard even in the summer, but these are no longer ringing, bubbly spring songs, but shouting, chirping, chirping - in a word, the usual bird call and conversations.
Today we will talk about the ability of birds to sing, speak, and imitate.
Birds are sometimes invisible to the eye, but we can hear them. They love to speak in their bird language, sometimes causing a real commotion and making an unimaginable noise.
We treat the hubbub of birds more as a surrounding background; our attention is attracted more by the singing of birds performing amazing roulades. Maybe that’s why writers, poets, and musicians glorify songbirds in their works?!
Bird songs are different: simple (on one note) and complex (whole melodies), short and long, similar to individual signals and melodic.
Songs or individual bird sounds:
communicate with each other,
claim rights to this territory,
warn each other about danger (high-frequency sounds emitted by birds at the moment of danger are not perceived by predators, but birds nearby receive the signal, passing it on),
males attract females during the mating season.
How do birds sing?
Birds produce sounds using the lower larynx, located deep in the throat. Only birds have a lower larynx. In its purpose, it is similar to the human vocal cords.
Some birds have special throat sacs that serve as original resonators, multiplying the volume of sound.
For example, New Zealand's flightless kakapo parrot can be heard 7 km away!
Why do birds sing at the beginning of the mating season?
Males attract the attention of females with their singing. Usually the male finds a place where he can be clearly seen and heard. The song serves as both a declaration of love and a warning to rivals - “the territory is occupied.”
The louder and more complex the male's song, the more likely he is to attract attention.
The most complex songs are performed by birds living in the forest: wren, nightingale, chaffinch, siskin, thrush, lark, oriole, linnet, goldfinch, waxwing, nightingale...
It is difficult for forest birds to notice each other in the dense foliage of trees and bushes. In addition, it is not safe to sit in plain sight, because you can fall into the clutches of predators.
Forest singers, forced to hide in the thicket of the forest, make themselves known only by singing, unlike their relatives, who can also show themselves.
In a complex song forest birds a lot of information about the performer, his health and readiness for mating.
Why do birds sing at dawn?
Early in the morning we are often awakened by the polyphonic chirping of birds. It “sounds” especially loudly if we sleep next to a window open to the garden or live next to a forest. Do you know why birds sing at dawn? Even the domestic rooster tries to crow! The question is certainly interesting!
There are three versions about this.
The first version says: at dawn, birds develop their vocal cords, that is, they train and sing. At the same time they warm up. This is their kind of charging!
Supporters of the second version believe that by singing at dawn, birds attract Special attention and confirm their rights to this territory. At dawn, nature is still sleeping, so every sound is heard clearly, loudly, loudly and carries over a longer distance.
According to the third version, at dawn, birds sing just for fun, enjoying the sun, and announce to the world that a new day has come!
Although, who can know what is going on in the bird’s head and what it is thinking about? And why, for example, does a rooster crow until he is hoarse in the morning?!
What birds can talk?
Some birds have such a developed vocal apparatus that they can not only reproduce individual sounds made by other inhabitants of the Planet, but also reproduce the human voice.
Moreover, they do it so skillfully, accurately copying individual intonations, that it seems that they are talking to us. But in fact, they masterfully imitate our voice and even intonations!
Real masters of imitation are the gray parrot and the mynah rook. Not only do they easily learn and remember words, but they also use them relevant to the topic. And when suddenly, to the question posed, we hear an adequate answer from the bird, our surprise knows no bounds!
And there is also a small bird - the marsh warbler, which can reproduce the songs of other birds. Inconspicuous on appearance The bird nests in Europe, but winters in distant Africa. A male warbler can sing with hundreds of voices different types relatives. But since he constantly copies other people's voices, it is not clear which song is his!
The famous imitator, the Australian lyrebird, reproduces the sounds of security alarms, chainsaws and other mechanisms, accurately replicating the neighing of horses and the barking of dogs.
Why do birds sing?
Birdsong is one of the most beautiful sounds in nature. Sometimes, when we get outside the city, we hear birds singing, and it may seem to us that they are talking to each other.
Indeed, birds communicate with each other, just like many other animals. Of course, birds can express pleasure, just like we do when we exclaim “Oh!” or “Ah!”The hen makes sounds that warn her chicks of danger and encourage them to crouch down to the ground. Then she gives another signal, calling them together.
When wild birds fly at night, they scream. This keeps them together and helps those who are lost return to the pack.
But the language of birds is different from our speech. We use special words that express our thoughts. Birds don't learn their own language.
It's an innate instinct.
In one experiment, a chicken was isolated from roosters and hens so that it could not hear the sounds they made. But when he grew up, he made the same sounds as the chickens who lived in the chicken coop.
But this does not mean that birds do not learn to sing at all. In fact, some birds can imitate the songs of others. This is where the polyphonic mockingbird got its name. If a sparrow is among canaries, it makes great efforts to sing like them. If a canary gets into the company of nightingales, it can imitate their singing quite well.
And we know well how a parrot imitates the sounds it hears. So we can say that although birds are born with the ability to sing, some learning still takes place.
Did you know that birds have their own dialects?
It turns out that the songs of the same bird species sound differently in different parts of the world. This suggests that, in addition to instinct, much in the life of birds influences the ability to sing.
 |
Spring songs, be it the cawing of crows in March, the drumming of woodpeckers, the chuffing of black grouse, the laughter and squeals of eagle owls, the chimes of tits or the May nightingale trills, the “crying” of orioles, the chirping of swallows, are always connected with the onset of the prenuptial period.
Each male performs his own characteristic song, signaling that his nesting territory is occupied. When the male sings, he seems to say: “I live here, and there is nothing else to do here!”
The song serves as a business card, by which birds of the same species distinguish their fellows from strangers.
Each male sings a special melody, so that the neighbors know who they are dealing with.
The territory protected by singing will not only belong to the singer himself. Soon it will become the residence of his entire family.
Consequently, birdsong has another purpose: the ringing serenade is supposed to attract the female, promising her a safe place for nesting.
 |
Page 2 of 2
Birdsong
In birds, sounds originate in the throat, much the same as in humans. But their vocal apparatus (syrinx) is located in the lower part of the trachea (lower larynx), while in humans it is in the upper part (upper larynx). Such low-voiced birds as the whooping crane and trumpeter swan have a very long trachea - 90-120 cm. The European white stork has no voice at all, since it does not have a vocal apparatus.
Most birds sing in the mornings or evenings and are silent during the day. The nightjar calls at dusk, mockingbirds and nightingales sing at night. To the trained human ear, the singing of each bird species is as specific as its appearance. Bird watchers can recognize some species of flycatchers by sound that are not visually distinguishable.
In almost all bird species, males sing more expressively than females. By singing, the male declares his rights to a certain territory, for which he sometimes repeats the song thousands of times a day, jumping from branch to branch across his domain. Singing reaches its peak just before the breeding season, and when it ends, most birds stop singing.
For humans, singing serves as a means of communication only in artificial situations, such as a musical or opera, but even among birds it does not serve for “everyday” communication. For example, when birds quarrel, call their chicks, ask for food, they communicate primarily using calling signals. These signals help them not to get lost from the pack. Sound communication - be it singing or calling calls - is especially important in the forest, where it is often much easier to hear than to see.
Why don't birds fall from branches when they sleep?
Songbirds are generally small, but not all of them are miniature. And not every songbird makes beautiful sounds. However, these four thousand-plus species undoubtedly have a common ability - the ability to sit on a perch. The toes are adapted for a tight grip - be it a twig, reed or telephone wires.
Based on the way they grasp branches with their paws, songbirds are classified as perching birds. The secret to perching is finger placement. Songbirds have four toes, three of which point forward and one, the strongest, points back. When a bird lands on a branch, the back finger grabs it from below, and the tendons automatically tighten all the fingers into a strong lock, so that it is impossible to fall.
Songbirds can grab with their paws not only a branch, but also other objects. Swallows, which have small and weak legs, prefer electrical wires. The meadow trumpet sings while sitting on the fence. A Marsh Short-billed Wren balances on a swaying reed. Birds that walk on the ground, such as the wagtail and horned lark, have longer toes and straighter claws. Tree-climbing birds, such as nuthatches and American pikas, have strong and curved claws. The dipper's tenacious paws allow it to walk underwater on slippery rocks.
In the 16th century, the ancestors of indoor canaries were brought to Europe from the Canary Islands. Wild birds were not very similar to today's pets. They had a greenish back with darker stripes and a yellowish-green belly. Through painstaking artificial selection, a wide variety of shapes and colors were obtained, including the familiar bright yellow, “canary”, as well as fancy breeds with crests and collars.
Competing with canaries as housebirds are various small finches from Africa, Asia and Australia, distinguished by their amazing variety of plumage. For example, the zebra finch has a dark outfit. Spectacled finches, astrilds and wax-billed weavers sport bright red feathers, and the color of the Gouldian finches combines all the primary colors. These birds are never completely tamed, and their joyful iridescent songs are rarely heard, but they are full of cheerfulness. In captivity, canaries do not do well alone, but if they live in a cage as a “company,” they reproduce well.
Spring - everything around comes to life and is renewed, and even people feel an inexplicable upsurge of strength!
These are the laws of nature that she herself invented for us. Often in the spring-summer period, especially when it gets light, wonderful shimmering sounds are heard everywhere - these “early birds” will mark the arrival of the morning with their “conversations”.
However, these trills have a certain meaning, understandable only to them. "Language", tones, individual "phrases" and trills are " bird talk" In the spring, during the “wedding” period, birds are most active.
Thus, by making specific sounds, “boys” woo “girls”. It also happens that several male birds literally “flood”, trying to earn the favor of the “lady of the heart.” Birds also inform each other about the availability of food, about impending danger, about their well-being and mood.
Birds make a great variety of sounds and attract people with their appearance. Love nature, and it will give you harmony and peace!
Loading...
