Birdsong for the
Curious Naturalist

43. Song packages of the Philadelphia vireo.

6. Song Learning Often Creates Complex Songs and Large Repertoires
How a repertoire is delivered
From page 100 in the book.

Song packages of the Philadelphia vireo. To learn more of the singing program of this vireo, one needs recordings longer than I have from one individual. Will more extensive recordings confirm that he routinely sings in song packages? If so, how many packages does a male have? How stable are the packages over time? Do the song types used within a package remain the same, but the favored sequence changes from one occurrence to another (as in ♫431 and ♫432)? And how about other Philadelphia vireos in the same neighborhood? How do their song repertoires and packages compare? Are the songs all different, as one would expect for the red-eyed vireo, or are many of the songs among neighbors the same, a result of song imitation? One could begin exploring longer recordings of this vireo on the internet (e.g., Xen0-canto, Macaulay Library, but almost certainly original recordings will be needed to sort all this out, as the relatively brief, random recordings currently available will not suffice.