Who Am I? Answered!

In my previous post I asked if you could identify which bird sang a song that gave this spectrogram, the trick being you could only "see" the sound - I didn't give any audio.

Click the image for a larger version.

Nate commented on the repeated up-and-down pattern, which translates to notes that are rising and falling. During June we have a few birds whose song fits the rising-falling pattern, but only one who matches the fluidity of this song. Have a listen to the video below to hear the actual song. Easier to identify this way, yes?

Click to play - you may need to turn up the volume
as I lost sound quality while making the video.

Congratulations go to Nate for correctly identifying the songster as a Common Yellowthroat. I hoped some guesses would come in for American Robin, Red-eyed or Warbling Vireo, possibly Scarlet Tanager, all species plausible in our yard that have an element of rising-and-falling songs. Three of those species could be eliminated by the continuous nature of the song: American Robin, Red-eyed Vireo, and Scarlet Tanager would all have pauses between phrases, which would show up as breaks of silence between the elements of the song.

In addition to being a lower frequency, this image of an
American Robin song shows clear breaks between the phrases.

Warbling Vireos sing a continuous song, but it is much buzzier than a Common Yellowthroat's song. This would be shown by heavily modulated notes on the spectrogram, while the yellowthroat's song is characterized by smooth, pure notes rising and falling.

A Common Yellowthroat belts out its song.

Now I know two things: the new recording units are working out pretty well, and you have to get up earlier than a yellowthroat to put one over on Nate. I'll come up with a harder one next time!

Common Yellowthroat and American Robin recorded 07 Jun 2009 in Horseheads, NY.
Common Yellowthroat photographed May 2009, Spencer Crest Nature Center, Corning, NY.

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