Each day as it dawns,
Mother, I should walk in your footsteps.
Swinging off branches, playing in valleys,
I should be coddled in mother’s lap everyday.
The nightingale that sings from behind the tree
Should be with me as it reciprocates with a “koo” whenever I call her.
– Komma Uyala
It is remarkable that the birds which sing are rarely decorated with brilliant colors. The best songsters are plain-colored, and most loved among them all must be the nightingale, for this bird has been an inspiration to poets and writers since the olden days. William Wordsworth in O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art called him a creature of a “fiery heart.” John Keats in his Ode to a Nightingale called him the “light-winged Dryad of the trees … Singest of summer in full-throated ease.” Coleridge addressed Philomel as the sister of love-lorn poets, who was the most musical, most melancholy bird. Andersen, in his fairytale The Nightingale, told of a poor little kitchen girl who said, “Then I hear the nightingale sing. It brings tears to my eyes. It’s as if my mother were kissing me.”
The nightingale is a songbird, which is a suborder of the perching birds, called oscines, from Latin oscen for “songbird.” Almost all birds use precise control of a highly specialized vocal organ called syrinx to make sound, but oscines have superior mastery of theirs. While others make their songs from instinct alone, songbirds learn theirs over time. Young songbirds have a rough template of a song and begin eavesdropping on their parents and other adults as nestlings. Some have only a few months to learn their songs, while others, such as European starlings, can add to their repertoire through adulthood. From this ability to learn songs they make the most complex and dramatic ballads in order to woo her or to establish a territory.
Parrots aren’t the only birds who can imitate others’ voices. The mockingbirds of the New World are best known for mimicking songs of other birds, insects, and amphibians. Among the most popular is the northern mockingbird, who can sound like an endless string of ten to fifteen different birds singing. A male may learn 200 songs throughout its life, with which he sings all through the day, and often into the night. Nighttime singing is more common during the full moon, and most nocturnal singers are unmated males. The lyrebirds of Australia have been known to mimic possums, koalas, dingoes, mill whistle, chainsaws, fire alarms, rifle-shots, camera shutters, dogs barking, crying babies, and human voices.
Beyond the vocal chord, songs can also be produced through feathers with remarkable effects. The North American ruffed grouse, when with his tail erect, his ruffs displayed, drums rapidly with his lowered wings on the trunk of a tree or against his own body; the sound thus produced is compared by some to distant thunder, and by others to the quick roll of a drum. The common snipe, during the pairing-season, flies to a thousand feet in height. After zig-zagging about for a time it descends with surprising velocity in a curved line with outspread tail and quivering pinions. While descending through the air, its feathers emit a drumming, or bleating, or neighing, or thundering noise, as expressed by different observers.
Similar to coloration, bird song repertoires have gotten larger over time. As song abilities continue to become more complex and accurate, there is significant interest in the studying of bird song evolution. Even though song repertoire is clearly an attribute in mating choice, so far there is little evidence to show a positive correlation between the repertoire size and the female’s preference for it. As with humans, mating attraction for birds is more than just feathers and trills. It’s an intricate game that requires complex coordination, design and construction expertise, and a whole lot of dancing around.
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