Ritardando—canyon wren
Chapter 9: Music to Our Ears
Subchapter: The music in birdsong
From page 154 in the book.
Photo by Robert Royse
♫641. Just below me in a collapsed lava tube, this male offered 37 songs over about two hours; long silent intervals are deleted to simulate a somewhat normal rate of singing. June 7, 2018. Lava Beds National Monument, Tulelake, California. (7:39)
♫642. Rapid singing in response to an "intruding songster." Full confession: I used playback of a canyon wren song to stimulate a reluctant singer, only to get this tirade in response. Playbacks evoke intense behavior, which may be normal under rare circumstances, but it's not the behavior we typically witness in nature. For that reason, I almost never use playbacks to stimulate birds to sing. All other recordings in Birdsong for the Curious Naturalist have been made without playback. May 27, 2009. Oxbow, Hell's Canyon, Oregon. (5:07)