Listen to birds sing as you've never listened before, as the world-renowned birdsong expert Donald Kroodsma takes you on personal journeys of discovery and intrigue.

Read stories of wrens and robins, thrushes and thrashers, warblers and whip-poor-wills, bluebirds and cardinals, and many more bird. Learn how each acquires its songs, how songs vary from bird to bird and place to place, how some birds' singing is especially beautiful or ceaseless or complex, how some do not sing at all, how the often quiet female has the last word, and why.

Hear a baby wren and the author's own daughter babble as each learns its local dialect. Listen to the mockingbird by night and by day and count how many different songs he can sing. Marvel at the exquisite harmony in the duet of a wood thrush as he uses his two voice boxes to accompany himself.

Feel the extraordinary energy in the songs just before sunrise as dawn's first light sweeps across this singing planet. Hear firsthand the unmistakable evidence that there are not one but two species of marsh wrens and two species of winter wrens in North America. Learn not only to hear but to see birds sing in the form of sonagrams, as these visual images dance across the pages while you listen to the accompanying CD.

Using your trained ears and eyes, you can begin your own journeys of discovery. Listen anew to birds in your backyard and beyond, exploring the singing minds of birds as they tell all that they know. Join Kroodsma not only in identifying but in identifying with singing birds, connecting with nature's musicians in a whole new way.

"Kroodsma, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, shares what he's learned from more than three decades of recording and analyzing the songs of birds in this intriguing, instructional book. Using 'sonagrams' (also known as sound spectrograms, they plot a sound's frequency over time), he illustrates the songs of 30 birds, from the familiar American robin to the exotic three-wattled bellbird of Costa Rica. He considers how birds acquire their songs (some species learn them; others have their tunes 'encoded somehow in nucleotide sequences of the DNA'), what makes the songs unique, what functions they serve, and how they've evolved. No two species sound alike, of course, but groups of birds within each species have their own dialects, and individual birds have their own repertoires as well. A CD of the bird songs discussed is included, as are descriptions of the recording equipment Kroodsma used and explanations on how to make similar recordings and 'sonagrams.' Kroodsma is a warm, encouraging guide to the world of birdsong, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Illus. Agent, Russ Galen. (Apr.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Is their song a language? If so, what do they say? Kroodsma (ornithology emeritus, U. of Massachusetts) focuses on only a few of the ten thousand species of singing birds on this earth, but by doing so he thoroughly explains the basics in these 30 personal journeys over 30 years. He explains how, when and where birds sing, starting with birds we hear daily. He then examines how songs develop through learning, mimicry, or some more mysterious means, how dialects develop, why some males sing spectacularly complex and beautiful songs, even on the wing, and even why a few females join in. Kroodsma provides beautiful line drawings, sonograms that are just as beautiful, and a CD with 98 birdsongs, including a cross-species moment between a child and a baby wren in mutual learning and appreciation.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Through highly personal stories, Kroodsma puts the reader inside the mind of a research scientist to explore how and why birds sing and how people can better understand them through their songs. Includes an audio CD of birdsongs.

The Singing Life of Birds is a fascinating read for anyone who yearns to understand the hidden dramas unfolding in his or her own back yard. Through highly personal stories, Donald Kroodsma puts the reader inside the mind of a research scientist to explore how and why birds sing and how we can better understand them through their songs. He deals with such questions as: How does an individual acquire its songs — are they innate and encoded in the DNA, or are they learned — and why? How and why do songs of individuals differ from place to place? Why do birds expend so much effort in singing, often with such complex or beautiful songs? And why does only the male usually sing? Read about robins and wrens, whip-poor-wills and woodcocks, thrushes and thrashers, flycatchers and sparrows, and many others as Kroodsma reveals the singing lives of birds.

The book includes a compact disc with recordings that have been carefully chosen to illustrate how, when, why, and where birds sing and to encourage readers to listen with an inquisitive mind.

DONALD KROODSMA, winner of the 2006 John Burroughs Medal Award and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, has studied birdsong for more than thirty years. He was recognized as the "reigning authority on the biology of avian vocal behavior"in the citation for his 2003 Elliot Coues Award from the American Ornithologists'Union.

Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

1. BEGINNINGS 1

Hearing and Seeing Bird Sounds 1

The Bewick's Wren 10

The American Robin 23

Good Listening, Good Questions, This Book 37

2. HOW SONGS DEVELOP 42

Introduction 42

Learning Songs:Where,When, and from Whom 44

The White-crowned Sparrow 44

The Song Sparrow 55

Borrowed Songs: Mimicry 68

The Northern Mockingbird 68

Songs That Aren't Learned 79

Tyrant Flycatchers: Alder and Willow Flycatchers,

Eastern Phoebe 79

Why Some Species Learn and Others Don't 89

The Three-wattled Bellbird 89

The Sedge Wren 102

3. DIALECTS: How and Why Songs Vary from Place to Place 119

The Great Marsh Wren Divide 120

The Black-capped Chickadee 135

The Chestnut-sided Warbler 145

Travels with Towhees, Eastern and Spotted 157

The Tufted Titmouse 165

4. EXTREMES OF MALE SONG 177

Introduction 177

Songbirds without a Song 179

The Blue Jay 179

Songbirds with Especially Complex Songs 191

The Brown Thrasher 191

The Sage Thrasher 202

The Winter Wren 214

Songbirds with Especially Beautiful Songs 225

The Bachman's Sparrow 225

The Wood Thrush 237

The Hermit Thrush 255

Music to Our Ears 267

Songs on the Wing 276

The American Woodcock 276

Tireless Singers 287

The Whip-poor-will 287

The Red-eyed Vireo 297

5. THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN 304

The Eastern Wood-Pewee 304

Chipping and Brewer's Sparrows 313

The Eastern Bluebird 325

6. SHE ALSO SINGS 335

The Barred Owl 336

The Carolina Wren 346

The Northern Cardinal 357

Appendix I: Bird Sounds on the Compact Disc 366

Appendix II: Techniques 402

Appendix III: Taxonomic List of Species Names 411

Notes and Bibliography 415

Index 452