Listening to a Continent Sing

Just after sunrise, a brown-headed cowbird sings and calls atop a pine tree along Lake Anna, giving both flight whistles and songs.

If the flight whistle is "FW," and the songs are lettered, during this minute he vocalizes in the following sequence: FW A B C FW FW

These songs are truly a marvel, with the male starting so low with his left voice box that it's difficult to hear what he's doing down there, and then in a split second, with his right voice box he's at the highest frequencies.

Over another few minutes, he gave several other renditions of the same flight whistle as well as two other songs, D and E, showing that he has at least five different songs he can sing.

Background

Rain drops falling from the trees after an overnight rain. American crow, another brown-headed cowbird in background, wood thrush, ovenbird, scarlet tanager.

Photo by Brian L. Sullivan