WHY DO BIRDS SING ?

Hokitika Guardian, 28 July 1923, Page 4

WHY DO BIRDS SING ?

(Sydney Paper.) There is a popular belief that the wood-note wild of members of the avian family has its soil fee in happiness: that birds burst into melody to nivc expression of joyful emotions. As a general thing, no doubt, birds do sing best when inspired by sensations of happiness and contentment. But they also sing- and sing with a spirit of ecstatic abandonment—under the impulse of quite different emotions. The butcherbird occasionally bursts into melody at the moment of finishing a. staentto note of anger. The common minah (or miner - .Myzantlia garrubi) is one of the few honey-eaters which have a musical note. To hear this note one has to he abroad very early in the day. Tile minah is not usually placed in the category .of Australian songbirds, yet it has one lovely note with which it greets the new day. This note is raiely heard for more than half an hour alter daylight. In this rase the song is eleoily tile outpouring of a joyous si irit. For the remainder of the day its notes are harsh, querulous, or alarmist in character, until at dud; it is heard plaintively protesting against the necessity of having to ictire for the night. A point worthy of consideration is that few hi ids of diurnal activity are in a happy mood when tile shades of night are closing down upon the landscape and the pressure of the necessity to go to roo.-t 1 cronies more and more acutely felt. As a matter of fact many birds at this hour of mystery, when day so quickly melts into the pall of night, give persi-ieut liitiuaiue to plaintive orb's which have no quality of iu.voii-iios in them whatever. Yet it is at this hour that many birds produ.e their must beautiful notes. The limit, shrill pi] nig note of the brown tree-creeper (Cliinnctcris: the “woodpecker” of popular nomenclature) is never so delightful or so appealing as when it rings through tho woods at dusk. It may he of course, that the effect is enhanced by the somewhat eerie silence which at that hour is making itself felt to l.'itd end man and least. It has been said that the song of the nightingale would not sound so wonderful and so thrilling if it were not for the ‘'stagesetting'' in which it is produced. Tile nightingale, we know sings at night, when there is no rivalry, when almost any kind of melody is more arresting than by day and when tho surrounding silence gives me fullest value to evoiv cadence of tho song. Keen the modest note of the black and white flycatcher (wagtail) seems much more beautiful by night than by day. anil it i' the same with the delightful little reed-warbler (Aorooeplialus australis', which on moiinliglii nights will sums limes pour forih its melody by I lie hour. I’raeiienlly all diurnal birds become eilbor liv’ful or I'm live . - da\ departs, yet i !:•• -ong of the grey iliiii-li (( olluric.li- i:> lot' moihuu) at desk of a wet spring day. when the t c s were dripping, and tho "weird mclan.lioly" spirit of the lillsli which so nll'eete.l .Marcus Clarke brooded over the laiid- ! .scape, was a revelation to the writer j despite the fact that he had led many years of intimate association with ibis. . charming species and its mbits. C miI moldy the -nog of the thrush is tan- | talising. It omits a sing],, note, per-' * haps two notes and then becomes silent ; it appears to be singing tentatively. absent-mindedly, with no heart in the song. The spiing song if the ; wet evening, on the other hand, was ; long sustained. It impressed one as bring compounded i f the qualities ol 1 wist fulness, sadness, anxiety, joy. and

S sorrow anil ecstasy. Uh> whole pro- ] during a wild Hood <il lintinting melody tile thrill and beauty of which left one hreathdcssly anxious nut to mis-. a single note. i ' AS IK INSI’IIIKI), I At times lords sing as if inspired. A day or two or a week or inn later 1 one niigltt visit- the haunt' of the I same bird and meet with nothing hut ; disappointment. The renditions n e-hf la.' t'v same, but it wool I he a rin thing to take a friend to the woods ■ under the impression that he would I her.;- the thrush sing in the rapturous 1 si.irit v.hie'i. moved it on the particular ! occasion referred to. One might l:a in tinil\ e< ntaet with lords jer half a ! life time an I lv might never again have tile re'e privilege nl hearing such ;Uii out hit rs t of semi-etli tidy, seliti-di- ' vine mi'h'dv as was wasted upon the ; silence of that solitary glen when night | ins de-oemling upon, the wet ami cNv: - - j le.-s Innds'upe. j Tile whistler (i’aehyeejdi.ila ) does not ' alv.ay- sing his host tinder the impelling pn's'snre of joy. eoiiteiitment. or Imp; iness. As a rule he produces his , line-i song under the sires; of tivalry It ml r.nij otilion during the mating ; period. Kamiiiar as you may he with the exquisite mile, of the-c 7 irds you simply do not know what lheir powers amount to until, on a spring morning, "hen the hush is a-sparkle, under n 1:1 lie sky. with the moisture of overnight rain and the whole atmosphere is pungent with the fragrance of damp earth, you have heard two or three whistlers all paying ardent court to a single female of the species. In such cireumstaiues the birds put forth the whole of their powers as they dash backwards am! forwards in the foliage, j i" :■ ?sse,|. apparently, by a veiy demon of ecstasy. There is. so far as my r.xperieme goo.s. no violence, no lighting. It is a contest of unalloyed ail. It. is ad honest, if port'dvid rivalry animated hy what we might term the sporting spirit', the lords reiving for ultimo t". victory upon the superior merit of their respective performances. Mow the shy anti elusive Indy of the serenade solves the problem of the relative inc:ils of the different performances is i. mystery to the human mind, since to human ears each song seems to be perfect. Perhaps the senses cf the ■vooed one are so finely attuned to heir purpose that, to her ears there are delicate shades of difference and of merit which are not detect a hie hy the coarser organs of man. Taking every tiling into consideration I think we are justified in placing the butcher-bird tit the ‘‘top of the tree” as the greatest of our song birds. In considering this question of why birds sing, one is somewhat at a loss where the ertu'ticus family are concerned, for they appear to derive [he singing impulse from sueh a variety of causes. They ling in joy. in sorrow, in contentment. Any kind of emotion seems to he sufficient to impel them to burst into melody. They will swing from harsh notes to melodious, ami from melodious to harsh, with the greatest facility. Observe one of these fearless birds if a crow, a hawk, or an eagle appears on I the scene. Me will go forth to battle, uttering harsh cries which resound through the woods—and having accomplished his purpose of driving off the enemy, he will re-turn to Ids starting point, perch on a dead limb, and pour forth the most glorious music—a -orf of hymn of thanksgiving for victorv. WITTTOTT IMVAI.S. With those birds the transition from the emotion of anger, or fear, to the emotion which must express itself in melody, appears to be as easy as it is natural. In two very interest mg respects at least, butcher-birds stand alone and are without rivals. A pair

of them constantly sing to each other : and they have a war-cry (which is at once a warning and a threat), that is unique among wild birds. Most male birds sing, apparently, for their own pleasure and to please their mates. You may hear such delightful songsters as (lie whistler, the reed-warbler, and the ill-named white-shouldered cattcr-pillnr-eater (Lalage tricolour), and the 'remarkable crested hell-bird >Oreoica cristata, not the so-called hell-bird of the coastal regions, which is a honey enter), all serenading their mates without evoking the faintest response. This, indeed, is the common and regular experience. But it is an extremely rare thing to hear a note from one butcherbird without an immediate response from its mate. Some times the call, or serenade, will go on for a considerable time, with one or other of the birds singing the response's. Another characteristic of the fractions family is that they practically sing all the year round. While ii is true, that they are at their best iu the spring and the autumn 'with a rather "slack” period during the summer months) ii is also true that they sing right through the-winter. I do not know of any oilier avian family in which male and female sing together and sustain their melodiousness throughout the year. The magpie (which is a cousin of fractions) ids;, carols most beautifully in the autumn, and as magpies indulge filially in group singing, the effect is concerned. The only other birds, ] think, which sing in groups arc tho whistlers - -hut in this cisc it is Usually when a number of males are contending lor the favours of the one female. Cractictis, on the other hand, is oiic of the -upreme individualists. Kvon in the mating season ii is a rare thing to see two of the birds together, though the oiic i s almost invariably within call of the other. Once a P'dr of them lake possession of an ar. a they retain il for life, just

as the y mate for life. The area may b • half a mi!", or a mile square (more or less), and within that ei'ee no other inn!- of l ■’c saui-' succies will he tolerated. The butcherbirds surpass nearly all ollmr species as songsters inasmuch as both sexes lake iie.it. they sing throughout the year, and tlicv have

greater versatility and a greater rang, of notes than anv other bird that h indigenous to Ansi ralia.