Listening to a Continent Sing

The wooded swamp has reclaimed the coal-mined strip beside the road, and the usual suspects all sing here, including the prothonotary warbler. He chips between songs, something I'd expect him to do only when agitated, yet there seems nothing here to agitate. Sure, I'm standing just 10 or so yards away, but he'd not chip at me, I wouldn't think, only at others of his kind.

He sings the only song he knows, his version of the prothonotary warbler song a rising weet-weet-weet-weet-weet-weet-weet, seven or eight phrases over a second and a half.

Background

Northern Cardinal, frogs, eastern wood-pewee, red-winged blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, indigo bunting, American crow, blue-gray gnatcatcher, northern parula, common yellowthroat

Photo by John Van de Graaff