https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/21/science/bird-calls-songs-quiz.html Skip to contentSkip to site index Search & Section Navigation Section Navigation SEARCH Science Today's Paper Science|Can You Understand Bird? Test Your Recognition of Calls and Songs https://nyti.ms/3DsG6Xq * Give this article * * * 342 The World of Birds * Our Birding Project * Help Us Track * How to Start Birding * The Joys of Sketching Birds * Bird Song Quiz Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Comments Can You Understand Bird? Test Your Recognition of Calls and SongsSkip to Comments The comments section is closed. To submit a letter to the editor for publication, write to letters@nytimes.com. Can You Understand Bird? Test Your Recognition of Calls and Songs By Elaine ChenJuly 21, 2023 * * * 342 It might sound like all chirps to you, but birds convey different messages, even across species. B. E. Small/blickwinkel, via Alamy Language has long been considered the exclusive provenance of humans. But in the animal kingdom, birds, not primates, communicate with the level of vocal complexity and variability closest to ours. Ornithologists have made progress in understanding the rich variety of ways in which birds converse, thanks in part to large and growing databases of bird calls such as one from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which includes millions of recordings captured by citizen scientists. This summer the New York Times birding project is encouraging readers to try birding by ear. So here's a quick tour of the avian soundscape. Each bird species has its own distinct set of sounds. Consider the black-capped chickadee, which frequents the northern United States and southern Canada year-round. Your browser does not support the audio element. With only slight variation, black-capped chickadees from Vancouver to Virginia make this same vocalization. Still more amazing is what birds can express with specific sounds. Your browser does not support the audio element. 1 of 7 Can you guess what this chickadee is trying to say? Jay McGowan Feed me Danger Nest with me Your browser does not support the audio element. 2 of 7 Here's a call from white-headed woodpeckers. Can you guess what they are saying? Ian Davies Go away This is mine I'm hungry Compared to bird calls, birdsongs tend to be more complex, with multiple notes and a clear pattern. And many songbirds learn them; they aren't born already knowing them. Ornithologists have called this process a form of cultural evolution. "Birdsong has a lot of parallels to human language," said Karina Sanchez, an expert on avian communication at the University of New Hampshire. With citizen science recordings, researchers have found regional dialects within species, and slight changes that, over years, have become dominant across populations. Here is a song from a great thrush, a bird common in the highlands of northwest South America. Your browser does not support the audio element. 3 of 7 Can you guess what it is expressing? Drew Weber This area is mine Oh no, a predator! I'm tired Your browser does not support the audio element. 4 of 7 Here's a song by a Baltimore oriole. Can you guess what the bird is saying? Alex Lamoreaux This is my spot I'm hungry Intruder alert! Your browser does not support the audio element. 5 of 7 Here's another song, this one by long-tailed manakins, a tropical bird of Central America. Can you guess what the birds are saying? John van Dort Pick me! Let's gang up on that big bird. Get away from my babies. Some birds attract mates not with a species-specific song, but through a large repertoire, including sounds borrowed from other species. For example, the brown thrasher, which can be found from eastern North America to parts of southern Canada, has one of the largest repertoires in North America with over 1,000 songs. But avian mimicry goes beyond copying other birds. Some birds are known to imitate wallabies, humans and even machines. Your browser does not support the audio element. 6 of 7 This clip has one set of sounds from a frog; the other is from a bird. Which one is the bird? The first one is the bird. The second one is the bird. Your browser does not support the audio element. 7 of 7 One of these sounds is a car, and the other is a bird. Can you tell which one is the bird? The first one is the bird. The second one is the bird. You can learn more about the bird calls and songs around you by using the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's free Merlin Bird ID app, which The Times is encouraging people to use for its summer birding project. The New York Times will be hosting a day of live journalism at the Climate Forward event in New York City on Sept. 21. Find out more. Credits to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Macaulay Library and recordists: Jay McGowan, Arthur Allen, Peter Paul Kellogg, Bob McGuire, Greg Budney, Fernando Angulo, David Ross Jr., Andrew Spencer, Zak Pohlen, Brad Wier, Dave Herr, Tim Kahn. Produced by Aaron Krolik. Read 342 Comments * * * 342 Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Site Index Site Information Navigation * (c) 2023 The New York Times Company * NYTCo * Contact Us * Accessibility * Work with us * Advertise * T Brand Studio * Your Ad Choices * Privacy Policy * Terms of Service * Terms of Sale * Site Map * Canada * International * Help * Subscriptions