{"id":3042,"date":"2016-08-07T17:38:12","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T17:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/?p=3042"},"modified":"2018-02-21T22:56:45","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T22:56:45","slug":"babbling-in-the-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/?p=3042","title":{"rendered":"Babbling in the Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By late summer, one may begin to overhear garbled, tempo-less cacophonies of notes while out birding. From approximately August through until the following spring, &#8220;baby&#8221; songbirds &#8220;babble&#8221; as they take to learning and developing their songs.<!--more--> This long road to song crystallization (fully developed adult song) first begins with a period known as <strong>subsong<\/strong>. Subsong is akin to the babbling of infants (which I believe the cherub in the photo below is in the m<span class=\"text_exposed_show\">idst of doing) and is an endearing attempt at singing. Often, subsong attempts are typically drawn-out, structureless rambles of notes. Take for example this lil&#8217; baby Sedge Wren giving its song a go: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xeno-canto.org\/211425\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">http:\/\/www.xeno-canto.org\/211425<\/a>. As a bird begins to &#8216;work the kinks out,&#8217; it advances to the following stage of development, known as the <strong>plastic song<\/strong>. In this stage, discreet phrases emerge as does a semblance of the final product, the fully crystallized song. A banner such as &#8220;not quite there yet, but keep trying!&#8221; is appropriate for birds in their plastic song phase. Take for example this White-throated Sparrow. The classic song is emerging, but there&#8217;s still some work to do <i class=\"_lew\" title=\"wink emoticon\"><i class=\"_4-k1 img sp_fM-mz8spZ1b sx_7f72ac\"><\/i><span class=\"_4mcd\">\ud83d\ude09<\/span><\/i>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xeno-canto.org\/33227\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">http:\/\/www.xeno-canto.org\/33227<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Children-Oil-Painting-10.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3043 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Children-Oil-Painting-10-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Children-Oil-Painting-10\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Children-Oil-Painting-10-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Children-Oil-Painting-10.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For further information, there&#8217;s some excellent literature on the subject of birdsong and song development. I highly recommend anything by Donald Kroodsma and also recommend &#8220;Nature&#8217;s Music: The Science of Birdsong&#8221; by Marler and Slabbekoorn. Please visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/?page_id=34\" rel=\"noopener\">Library<\/a> under the section &#8220;Birdsong&#8221; for a more detailed list of suggested reads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By late summer, one may begin to overhear garbled, tempo-less cacophonies of notes while out birding. From approximately August through until the following spring, &#8220;baby&#8221; songbirds &#8220;babble&#8221; as they take to learning and developing their songs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3042"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8394,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042\/revisions\/8394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}