birdsong

As many readers of this blog will know, I'm a composer and have a special interest in birdsong. A lot of my birdwatching is, in fact bird listening. Sometimes when I am leading a walk, I will say "There's a such-and-so" and everyone will say "Where? Where?" and I have to confess that I've just heard, not seen, the bird. For me, a heard bird can be as good as a seen bird and an unusual song very often gives me the clue that something interesting is in the neighborhood.

There is a whole tradition of composers -- from Claude Jannequin in the 16th century to Beethoven in the 19th and Olivier Messiaen in the 20th century -- who have incorporated bird song into their music. I am often asked if I have ever done the same. I did use bird songs -- highly transformed -- in a multi-media piece called "Can Man Survive?" which I made for the centenary of the Museum of Natural History years ago (it was on display for some five years!). Currently, I am working on a piece of music which is based, not so much on bird song per se, but on the various inerpreations that humans have put on bird song. My inspiration for this is a wonderful book entitled "Wild Birds and Their Music" by F. Schyler Mathews from the turn of another century (.Mathews not only transcribed bird song into Western musical notation, he even harmonized the songs in the style of Italian opera, Gilbert & Sullivan or Victorian parlor music!).

My subject for today is, however, a very different sort of book about bird song. I have been reading Donald Kroodsma's "Singing Life of Birds". Anyone interested in bird song should get this book which is a remarkable combination of scientific evolutionary biology and very personal and poetic nature writing. Kroodsma, who is emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts and a fellow at the Cornell Lab or Ornithology, is perhaps the most eminent authority on birdsong in the world today but he is far from a dry academician and, as this book amply demonstrates, he has never lost his enthusiasm for his subjects: the birds and their music. The book comes with a CD of aural illustrations and ample explanations of what you are hearing.

Kroodsma is a modern-day King Solomon; when the birds vocalize, he understands what they mean! There are lots of things to learn here. For example, flycatcher songs are genetically imprinted and don't have to be learned. One result of this is that when two populations of a flycatcher have different songs, they are probably two different species -- even if they look alike (the classic examples are the Willow and Alder Flycatchers). But with most of the true songbirds (the so-called oscines), the songs have to be learned and the result is that different populations have different dialects and, only when the songs differ so greatly as to prevent interbreeding, does the process of species separation begin (as with the eastern and western forms of the Marsh Wren which, the author implies, may well be separate species).

Kroodsma even discusses such seemingly arcane matters as songbirds without a song. Well, not so arcane; it turns out that this includes all the crows and jays, birds that have a big ability to communicate with an amazing variety of calls (I'm particularly fond of the Blue Jay's 'rusty gate' call which I heard repeatedly this morning). Kroodma was also one of the discoverers of the 'world's best singer', defined as the bird with the most songs. Wanna guess? No, not a Nightingale, not a Mockingbird, not even a thrush. It's a Brown Thrasher; each individual singer has between 3,000 and 4,000 distinct songs! No other singer (at least discovered so far) even comes close.

Well, there's a lot more. He analyzes aerial singers (Woodcock), tireless singers (Whip-poor-will, Red-eyed Vireo) and beautiful singers (Bachman's Sparrow, Wood & Hermit Thrush). As you can see, most of these birds can be found -- and heard -- on Long Island. On July 4th (yes, July 4th), I'm doing a birdsong walk for South Fork Natural History Society (SOFO) at East Hampton's Grace Estate. Although it's late in the singing season, I find that many birds have a strong if brief recurrence of song after breeding and that's usually in the first week or so of July. If you're interested call SOFO at (631) 537-9735 for details and reservations.

Eric Salzman