Order of Phrases. Other authorities consider the song to begin with Johnson's Syllable 2,
offsetting the numbering scheme used here by one. I use Johnson's numbering scheme because it is the best known.
I agree with most authorities that it is difficult to discern where one song ends and another begins during intense
pre-dawn singing.
Functional vs. Onomatopoeic Names of Sounds. For several decades now, behaviorists have been trying to use
descriptive rather than functional names for classes of signals. According to this dictum, "pee-ist"
would be preferred to "Male Position Note." Using descriptive terms is a good idea, as the discussion below of
"Position Notes" will show. Nevertheless, I continue here the usage of functional sound names that date at least from
Davis et al. (1963), for three reasons:
Usage. In an intensive study of vocal behavior of a breeding population in the Queen Charlotte Islands of
British Columbia, Ainsley (1992) found that "Song"
(= "Male Advertising Song" (MAS) of Johnson (1980)) was used predominantly for mate attraction.
Support for this interpretation came from the cessation of singing during courtship, and then again
shortly after hatching. Males do sing between the courtship and hatching periods, but only in the
reaches of the territory that are most distant from the nest. Apparently they are trying to attract
second mates, which one of Ainsley's males was able to do. Ainsley found no
evidence that song was used in inter-male communication, so using song playback is not likely to incite
a bird to sing.
Neither the "Male Position Note" (MPN) nor the "Female Position Note" (FPN) is restricted to a single sex
(Ainsley 1992). On breeding
territories, the MPN is used predominantly by males. MPN plus several other calls
(but not song) are used in vocal exchanges with neighboring males. MPNs are also frequently incorporated into singing
performances. Ainsley found that MPN was likely to be associated with a change of perch, and that birds changed
perches often while singing. On the other hand, one does not often hear the MPN during pre-dawn singing (pers. obs.),
and this may be because it is too dark for the bird to change perches often at that hour.
Davis et al. (1963) pointed out that females respond to male usage
of MPN near the nest with MPNs of their own, and Ainsley confirmed this, although he observed that the female
was more likely to use FPN than MPN in this context.
On breeding territories FPN is used
predominantly (Ainsley 1992) or
exclusively (Davis et al. 1963) by females.
Numerous observers have commented that both sexes probably use this call in winter and on migration. In a letter to
Buckely and Mitra (2002), Johnson wrote, that the high thin seet
call "is given by both sexes of both species in alarm." FPN is not simply Song Phrase 1 in another context. The two
are distinctly if minutely different. Within species, FPN is about 1 kHz higher in frequency, and, so far, I have
not seen a Song Phrase 1 with the sharply concave shape of many FPNs.
Transliterations from some recent print references. Most authorities use the same transliterations for the song
phrases of both species, despite the visual dissimilarity of Song Phrase 2. They focus attention on the
Male Postion Note as the best means of distinguishing the species. As mentioned under
Male Position Note,
this is not a good idea. Johnson pointed out, and I concur, that Song Phrases 2 and 3 offer the best hope of telling
these two species apart.
Lowther's (2000)
transliterations originated with Davis et al. (1963).
This list is for cross-references. I don't recommend trying to remember these "words."
Introduction
Characteristics of Sounds
List of Geographic Samples
"Phrase" vs. "Syllable." Ned K. Johnson was the leading student of this group,
and I follow the terminology and ordering scheme he established in
1980
for the most part. I prefer "phrase" to Johnson's "syllable," because I find analogies between human music
and bird vocalizations more apt than those between
human speech and bird sound. The basic unit of continuous
sound in music and birdsound is a "note." A note is illustrated
on a spectrogram by a trace that is continuous in the time dimension,
i.e., it's an unbroken line going left to right.
A "phrase" is one or more notes closely grouped in time, such that
phrases are separated from each
other by longer silent intervals than are notes.
The greater interval between phrases than between notes is beatifully illustrated
by the songs of "Western" Flycatchers.
In the birdsound literature "syllable" has been used to
mean both "note" and "phrase," as described above, so I find it rather vague.
(Lowther 2000)
(Lowther 2000)
(Lowther 2000)
COFL
(Sibley 2000)
PSFL
(Sibley 2000)