Bird call

“ Wherever one casts one’s eye there is a bird.
As might be expected from this universal distribution, or indeed omnipresence, we hear continually the most varied bird-voices. They coax and call, pipe and whistle, chirp and twitter, trill and warble, coo and chatter, scream and crow, screech and cackle, cry and sing on all sides of us, above and beneath, early and late, and all day long. ”

“ The characteristic cry of the species, spring and fall. It is commonly given by passing or leaving birds. It advertises the species—and a change of policy in the individual according to its loudness. Analogous with notes of other species spoken of as flight notes or identification notes; occasionally heard from an alighted bird. This call is subject to considerable variation, when heard from a bird about to drop down and join others feeding it is comparatively low-pitched and even, leaving or about to leave a feeding ground, highly modulated. ”

“ Give the bird the room he demands,—wide, early-morning fields,—and listen. A single shout, almost human it seems, wild, weird, and penetrating, yet clear and smooth as the blast of a bugle. One can never forget it, nor resist it; for it thrills like a resurrection call—the last, long summons to the spring waking. ”

“ Owing to this vagrancy, the fieldfare is an extremely familiar bird to the countryman, and invariably its first appearance, and harsh yet joyous clamour, as of jays screaming and magpies chattering in concert, call up a sudden image of winter—cold, brief days and a snow-whitened earth, and memories of that early period in life when the great seasonal changes impress the mind so deeply. ”

“ If there are many of the reds they have already frightened away most of the small animals that we might imitate, and to give a bird-call would utterly ruin us. No bird will be waking up at this time o’ night—ugh! ”

“ All through the spring and all through the autumn birds take these mysterious flights—for so they always seem to House People, as flock after flock gathers and disappears. You can watch them sometimes passing by day so high in the sky that they seem like dust-motes—then perhaps you will only hear a faint call-note and see nothing. At night the sound of many voices falls from the clouds. Sometimes it will be the tinkling bell of Bobolinks, sometimes the feeble peep of Snipes, and sometimes the hoarse honk of Wild Geese. ”

“ If the call of any particular individual bird is listened for, it appears to be repeated almost systematically every few hundred yards as the bird travels on its journey. In the absence of some proof of the true significance of the call note, an explanation can only be a hypothetical one, but it certainly appears as if the relation in space of one bird with its neighbors would be roughly maintained by this night call. ”

“ Not long after the bluebird comes the robin. In large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with perilous rapidity. ”

“ The sound has a peculiarly exciting quality even to human ears (twice have I seen men run wildly to answer it) , and birds come to it as boys to a fire alarm. In a few moments you may have them streaming in from the four quarters of bird world, all highly [24] excited, and perhaps all ready to protect some innocent nest from snake or crow or squirrel. Because the response is most electric at the season when fledglings are most helpless, you are apt to think that this call of yours is mistaken by mother birds for a cry for help. ”

“ This call of the male bird is not difficult to imitate. Hunters who know the birds will occasionally use it to call a scattered covey together, or to locate the male birds, which generally answer the leader's call. I have frequently called a flock of the birds into a thicket at sunset, and caught running glimpses of them as they hurried about, looking for the bugler who called taps. ”

“ Having learnt first how to use this call, you shall sit and call the birds unto you, and as any of them light on your bush, step not out unto them till you see them sufficiently entangle; neither is it requisite to run for every single bird, but let them alone till more come, for the fluttering is as good as a stale to entice them more. ”

“ To the sense of sight in birds, the sense of hearing comes a good second. A twig breaks under our feet, and out sounds the danger-call of the bird we were trying to watch. Many young birds, like partridges, respond when two or three hours old to the anxious warning note of the parents, and squat motionless on the ground, though other sounds, such as the excited clucking of a foster-mother hen, leave them indifferent. ”

“ It is impossible to describe the calls on paper, and long practice will alone give a thorough knowledge of them; they are generally shrill and loud; the shriller and louder the{84} better—for man’s best efforts will rarely equal the bird’s natural powers. The yelper has a clear, bold cry, and the willet a fierce shriek that can be heard for miles; and if listened to from a distance, it will be found that the bird’s call can be heard twice the distance of the man’s answer. ”

“ The result is that such a means has been developed. Every bird, whose habit it is to go about in company, has the habit of continually uttering some kind of call or cry. It probably does this unconsciously, without being aware that it is making any sound.
In Madras a white-headed babbler nestling was once brought to me. ”

“ The birds are extremely tame, and settle on the person of the fancier.
Hitherto there has been nothing more than a flight of pigeons, but in the afternoon, about an hour or two hours before sunset, the real excitement commences. Up goes a flight of some twenty pigeons, they commence to make circles; no sooner does their course extend over the house of a rival fancier than he starts his birds in a cloud, in the hope of inveigling an outlying bird or two into his own flock; then both owners call, whistle, and scream wildly, agitating their poles and flags. ”

“ The use of the call-bird as a means of decoy is very ancient. Sometimes—and more especially in the dark, as in the taking of nightingales—the bird-catcher imitates the notes of the birds to be captured. ”

“ Voice.—The nuptial song has been described under courtship, but the bird has also a variety of call notes from a simple weep or peep, from which, doubtless, it gets its common name, to a succession of notes more or less complicated. John T. Nichols (1920) has written at length on the voices of shore birds, and has kindly furnished the following for this article:
The identification flight-call is a loud diagnostic kreep, distinguished by the ēē sound from any note of the semipalmated sandpiper.... ”

“ The descriptions of the calls of the nocturnal birds of prey given by India ornithologists are notoriously unsatisfactory. This is perhaps not surprising when we consider the wealth of bird life in this country. It is no easy matter to ascertain the perpetrators of the various sounds of the night, and, when the naturalist has succeeded in fixing the author of any call, he finds himself confronted with the difficult task of describing the sound in question. ”

“ Their sight and hearing infinitely excel those of the bird-catcher. The moment they see a hawk they communicate the alarm to each other by a plaintive note, nor will they then jerk or call though the wild birds are near. ”

“ At the first appearance of danger the cry of alarm is sounded, a sort of hoarse clarion call. Immediately the flock takes wing or dives under the water. In descending from the upper air and alighting on a suitable spot, the cautious bird is equally prudent. ”

“ All birds have alarm cries, and a call-note that serves the same purpose as a song, although it may not seem at all musical to us. We are naturally more interested in that order of birds whose voices are the most perfectly developed. These not only sing when they are courting, but all the time their mates are sitting upon the eggs, and until the young are ready to fly. ”

“ Nay, it frequently happens, that if only half a flock are caught, the remainder will immediately after light in the nets, and share the same fate, and should only one bird escape, that bird will suffer itself to be pulled at till it is caught, such a fascinating power have these call-birds. ”

“ By suddenly pressing the inflated body, the dead bird immediately gave out the loud call of the bird when alive, the sound being produced by means of the air passing through the voice-box at the bottom of the windpipe. ”

“ Bird life is particularly in evidence in the early morning, and everything that has a voice seems to make use of it to the utmost, though with the exception of the yellow-vented bul-bul and one or two other small birds, few can lay claim to anything but a call note, which in most instances is neither melodious nor agreeable to the ears of ordinary people, though to a lover of nature there is something very pleasant even about these. ”

“ As I have told you before, all birds have some note or sound that they use to attract attention or call their mates; but it is only those whose voices are so highly developed that they can make really continuous musical sounds, that are called song birds.
"The male is the only real singer in Birdland. Many females have pretty musical notes that they give when about the nest, and some scraps of song; one or two are quite good musicians, but the great chorus comes from the males. ”

“ Robin "taking aim." After photograph by John B. Parker. determined by habit. The bird flies to a certain branch, grasps certain twigs, before it finally lands on a certain part of the nest itself. Then usually follows a pause as the bird straightens up and stands over her young. If the mate is brooding, as is likely to be the case in bad weather, a call-note is sometimes given by the visiting bird, when the sitter promptly retires. ”

“ Apart from the sharp notes of the warblers, the cooing of the doves, the hooting of the crow-pheasants, the wailing of the kites, the cawing of the crows, the screaming of the green parrots, the chattering of the mynas and the seven sisters, the trumpeting of the sarus cranes and the clamouring of the lapwings, almost the only bird voices commonly heard are those of the fantail flycatcher, the amadavat, the wagtail, the oriole, the roller and the sunbird. ”

“ When flying he utters a harsh, powerful scream, and he has, besides, a strange vocal performance, called ‘booming’—a sound that resembles the bellowing of a bull. Formerly, when the bittern was a common bird in England, this extraordinary evening performance was the subject of some superstitious notions, and it was commonly believed that, to produce so great a volume of sound, the bird, when screaming, thrust its beak and head into the water. ”

“ He describes the behavior from his own observations:
“When the bird is ready to begin guiding it comes to a person and starts a repetitive series of churring notes, or it stays where it is and begins calling these notes and waits for the human to approach it more closely. These churring notes are very similar to the sound made by shaking a partly full, small matchbox rapidly sidewise. If the bird comes to the person it flies 15 or 20 feet from him, calling constantly and fanning its tail. ”

“ Moreover, the flying up of any bird from the crowd does not, of itself, communicate alarm to the others, for first one and then another and often several at a time may constantly be doing so, whilst the rest feed quietly and take no notice. It may be said that it is only when a bird flies off in alarm that its flight communicates alarm to its companions. ”

“ When thus disporting, each within its own charmed circle, the downward rush and bleat of one snipe will often for a long time immediately precede or follow that of another, bleat answering to bleat, till at length the duet is broken and complicated by a third intermingling voice. At last a bird, trampling on etiquette, will flit into the circle of the one you are watching, and the two, excitedly pursuing each other with "chack-wood, chack-wood," or, with the harsh, wild scream and loud swish of pinions, will speed off and vanish together. ”

“ Not that any society is entered into by the different species, or that they even sport together; but one may often stand on the bank of a canal, or by the margin of a pond, and see all four kinds glance by in varied succession, and in proportions which differ according as one or the other is most abundant in the neighbourhood. Acute listeners can, it is said, hear a snapping noise made by the bird as it closes its beak on a captured insect, but I must confess that though I have often tried to detect this sound, I have never succeeded. ”

“ Not far from the nest the parent birds scratch about in the leaves like diminutive barn-yard fowls, for the grubs and insects hiding under them. But at the first suspicion of an intruder their alarm becomes pitiful. Panic-stricken, they become fairly limp with fear, and drooping her wings and tail, the mother-bird drags herself hither and thither over the ground.
As utterly bewildered as his mate, the male darts, flies, and tumbles about through the low branches, jerking and wagging his tail in nervous spasms until you have beaten a double-quick retreat. ”

“ When it is flushed from its nest, or is suddenly startled from the ground by a dog, it rises with a loud whirring sound, which noise, however, is not made when the bird rises of its own accord. Its movements on the ground are very stately and graceful, except when it is approached too near, when it runs in a rapid manner, lowers its head, and spreads its tail, and either seeks shelter or takes to flight. When it hides in the bushes, it usually squats and remains close. ”