BirdNote; How Young Birds Learn Songs

BirdNote®

How Young Birds Learn Songs

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

[Bewick’s Wren song]

A songbird’s first summer of life is hectic, especially for a newly fledged male. There is much to learn and very little time.

[Bewick’s Wren song]

Take the Bewick’s Wren, for example, a sweet-singing wren residing throughout much of the western US and locally in the East. [Bewick’s Wren song] A male Bewick’s Wren chick emerges from the egg in early June. Within two weeks, he’s already out of the nest, skulking in the shrubbery, awaiting feedings from his parents. Now, and over the next couple of weeks, the fledgling male learns at least 15 different song variations his father sings.

[Bewick’s Wren song]

At five weeks old, the young male wanders off on his own, searching for his own first territory in a bramble patch. He finds just the spot in August, about a mile from his birthplace. Now he must learn all the songs of the male Bewick’s Wrens within earshot.

[Bewick’s Wren song]

For only by singing these local songs – which are all subtly different from his natal songs – will he be able to contend for a mate next spring.

Whew! Thirty or more songs to learn in the first two months of life, not to mention all the other challenges of survival in the wild!

[Bewick’s Wren song]

Birdsongs we feature on BirdNote come from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I’m Frank Corrado.

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Song of the Bewick’s Wren provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by M. Medler.

Ambient recorded by C. Peterson

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Chris Peterson

© 2010 Tune In to Nature.org August 2010

ID# song-06-2008-08-11-KPLU song-06

[Primary reference: Kroodsma, Donald. The Singing Life of Birds. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.]