The Birds Are Making A Racket
The birds were making quite a racket today. They’ve probably been around, but it wasn’t until I was out this afternoon that I really noticed the noise, all kinds and all pitches.
Years ago, I ran across a ten-inch 33rpm album of bird sounds, most of them slowed down to maybe 1/8 or less of their original speed. The complexity of the birds’ songs is amazing. They aren’t just quick chirps, but perhaps the exercise of an excellent whistler (at, let’s say, 1/8 speed) which we can’t really hear in real-life. Whatever they are saying, I’m sure the other birds can figure it out.
I wonder if one kind of bird can understand another. Or are they different languages and one kind of bird never knows what another kind of bird is trying to get across? If they are like us, that could cause some amusement . . . and/or some problems.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll keep an eye on them, as we have a lot of trees around here and they probably hang out in the branches. I’ve never seen one kind of bird attack another kind, so maybe they just keep to themselves. Or, they might have had tolerance lessons early in life so they respect each other’s plumage, rather than bonding together against the robins, or the chickadees or hummingbirds.
Of course, meat eaters (like robins) aren’t going to care much about seed eaters; they don’t have to compete for food. A robin foraging for food has eyes only for a nice juicy worm and could care less about the poppy seeds that fell off your breakfast bagel, or that early birds get the worms.
Years ago, I ran across a ten-inch 33rpm album of bird sounds, most of them slowed down to maybe 1/8 or less of their original speed. The complexity of the birds’ songs is amazing. They aren’t just quick chirps, but perhaps the exercise of an excellent whistler (at, let’s say, 1/8 speed) which we can’t really hear in real-life. Whatever they are saying, I’m sure the other birds can figure it out.
I wonder if one kind of bird can understand another. Or are they different languages and one kind of bird never knows what another kind of bird is trying to get across? If they are like us, that could cause some amusement . . . and/or some problems.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll keep an eye on them, as we have a lot of trees around here and they probably hang out in the branches. I’ve never seen one kind of bird attack another kind, so maybe they just keep to themselves. Or, they might have had tolerance lessons early in life so they respect each other’s plumage, rather than bonding together against the robins, or the chickadees or hummingbirds.
Of course, meat eaters (like robins) aren’t going to care much about seed eaters; they don’t have to compete for food. A robin foraging for food has eyes only for a nice juicy worm and could care less about the poppy seeds that fell off your breakfast bagel, or that early birds get the worms.
posted by Tom Carten at 11:56 PM
1 Comments:
HA! Those *docile* birds are about as docile as a freshly armed Taliban!
The robins are meat eaters, the red-winged blackbirds will steal their eggs and their young (why do you think that the female is dressed in a very casual manner while the male is flamboyant?), and smaller birds, whose name I do not know in English, mésanges, will take off after blackbirds and crows who are in a raiding mode and will peck them on their back as the smaller ones are quite agile. Sort of like a Corsair chasing a DC-3.
They are pigs! They eat like crazy and those dumb doves get in the feeder and won't leave, the yfill up and fall asleep and the sparrows are having a fit down below on the ground.
Meanwhile, back at the cedar hedge, cats show up from out of nowhere. The woodpeckers don't care, neither do the hummingbirds. Those hummingbirds can and will drill anything furred or featered which gets to close to the nest.
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