The birds fly in and out of the trees in my mom’s yard. She’s had the bird feeders up for a few years now so she gets all kinds in and out of there. Cardinals, cowbirds, peliated woodpeckers, swallows and so many others land just feet from the front porch. You see some chase others off and others fly right in behind them. They chirp and sing and carry on, you’d almost think they were mad and screaming at each other like road rage for suet cakes. According to this new study, that may just be what they’re doing.
University of Washington graduate student Christopher Templeton has been studying bird conversations at the University of Montana. His studies of the diminutive little black-capped chickadee provided a proverbial birdie adventure hour as Templeton continued to study all the aspects of the birds’ language.
Templeton said the birds can vary their calls in duration, tone, intensity and even the spacing between the syllables. Apparently the chickadees have multiple calls to utilize depending on the situation. The familiar chick-a-dee call could be used to tell other bird about predators or food sources, depending on the situation.
Their story of the study is somewhat of an accident. They were using artificial birds to test reactions from the chickadees, who eventually figured out the birds weren’t real. Then Templeton and his cohorts on chickadee crime, Kate Davis and Erick Greene got the idea to go get some real raptors and watch what happens.
According to the published study in the nature journal Science, they were able to observe a whole bevy of sounds and calls from the little birds. They tested their research when they played the recorded sound of a chickadee response to a Northern pygmy owl.
When the grad students played a series of sounds, only part of the flock of six came to the speaker. When they played the sounds longer with more of the D notes, the whole flock came a flyin’ and were a little testy.
My family members who sit quietly on the porch with the trusty National Geographic Bird Watcher’s book should enjoy reading about this study. But, I suspect, for the veteran bird watcher, this news is something they already heard.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
