Vocal Functions
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Description: Songs identify the species of the singing bird. The territorial song of males serves the dual purpose of territorial proclamation directed at other males and of mate attraction directed toward females.
he advent of the breeding season in spring is heralded each dawn by a chorus of bird song that continues intermittently throughout the day. With practice, we can identify a species by its songs and calls even without seeing the vocalizer, and we infer that birds can similarly distinguish between members of their own and other species by voice alone. This assumption has been verified experimentally for numerous passerine species by playing tapes of vocalizations in the field carefully observing responses of individual listeners. By altering the tempo, frequency characteristics, length, or other features of tape-recorded songs, and then observing birds' responses to them, the actual components of songs used for species recognition have been identified in several instances. For example, the duration of intervals between elements within songs is important for species recognition in Common Yellowthroat, Rufous-sided Towhee, and Field, Song, and White-throated Sparrows. Other species, such as Winter Wren and Brown Thrasher, encode identification mainly in the syntax (sequence of elements) of their songs.
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| Page title: | Vocal Functions |
| Keywords: | Vocal Functions |
| Description: | Vocal Functions |
| IP-address: | 171.67.215.200 |
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| NS | Name Servers: ARGUS.STANFORD.EDU 171.64.7.115, 2607:f6d0:0:9113::ab40:773 AVALLONE.STANFORD.EDU 171.64.7.88, 2607:f6d0:0:9116::ab40:758 |
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| Date | activated: 04-Oct-1985 last updated: 07-May-2009 expires: 31-Jul-2014 |