The Remarkable Sounds of Birds

Until the British musician David Hindley studied the song of the Skylark by slowing it down the song was simply regarded as just another beautiful bird song. But what he discovered was that the bird song held recognizable musical notes! From forty eight seconds of the compressed and mind numbingly complex song, Hindley extracted nearly thirteen minutes of sheet music - music that could be played like any other piece. But even more astounding was the remarkable resemblance to structures in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony!

The vocal skills of birds are due in part to the unusual structure of their vocal anatomy and are decidedly more complex than a human’s. The bird’s equivalent to the human sound box is called a syrinx. The two part syrinx is located deep within the bird’s chest at the junction of the air tubes that lead from the lungs. Each half of the syrinx is attached to one of the two different air tubes giving it the ability to produce two different notes at the same time.

Birds use this incredible ability when searching for a mate, when defending and declaring a territory, or to maintain the bond of a pair. For these reasons, males usually are more vocal than females with spring being the most vocal season. Dawn is the bird’s most vocal time of day. Scientists are still not sure why birds seem to prefer dawn but it is characteristic of birds worldwide.

We still have many things to learn from our avian friends. But not knowing all the answers, thankfully, doesn’t keep us from enjoying the sites and sounds of birding!