The spring chorus invites us to pay attention to birds.
As a bird watcher with over 20 years’ experience, I’ve always wanted to be able to determine by song which warbler was in the near-by tree. To do this most efficiently, I turned to All About Birds, the Cornell Ornithology web site, and typed in “warbers.” It gave me a list of all warblers with their photos. Some of these warblers were not common to New Jersey, so I left them off my list. You can sort your warblers based on your own location. I clicked on the song button to “Listen” to each warbler. Here’s what I learned:
There are warblers that sing very short songs. Songs have up and down notes. These consist of Common Yellowthroat, Yellow Warbler, Kentucky, Magnolia, Hooded, Canada Warbler, Swainson’s Warbler, Mourning and Yellow-throated Warbler, including Connecticut Warbler, Oven Bird, Northern and Louisiana Waterthrush. Toss in Ruby-crowned Kinglet. If you want to name warblers by sound, these are the ones to memorize. Got to All About Birds (link posted below) search “warblers” and play those songs frequently until you get them in your head. Having a musical background helps!
There are other warblers that sing, but the “song” is a repetitive note with a steady beat. These are Pine, Palm, Prairie, Wilson’s, Prothonotary, Blackburnian, Yellow-rumped, Chestnut, Cerulean, Redstart and Orange Crowned. Black-throated Green, Blue or Gray Warblers, Nashville and Kentucky Warblers are on this list. To learn these, you are reaching to a higher level of bird-songery!
The difficult and totally buzzy sounding warblers are Blackpoll Warbler, Cape May, Worm-eating, Bay-breasted and Northern Parula, including Golden-crowned Kinglet, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and Junco. Their calls are often so high pitched you may not even hear them at all. Trying to memorize these calls could make you totally crazy. There is probably someone out there who can do it without using an app. Caution: This and a little “warbler-neck” may bring an end to your joyous celebration of birding.
I hope I’ve saved you some time by sorting out which warbler songs are really worth memorizing. However, if you object to my analysis, feel free to put some time into it yourself. The real songbirds of spring are the vireos and bigger perching birds, such as the orioles and thrushes. Those are the ones that can belt-out a tune! Use your talents to memorize their song for an even more exciting bird-finding experience.
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Over the years my hearing has gradually faded, particularly in the high notes that birds sing. But I recall, from my youth the wonderful sound of the chickadee, "Chickadee dee, dee." The call of the Whippoorwill from the fence rows along with the Meadowlark and other singing birds. At one point, I got good enough at imitating a crow that I actually called some in.
But since I've been in Houston, there is an ever present sound of mourning doves cooing so forcefully as they jerk their tails up and head forward to get the sound out. And I always enjoyed the spring calls of the mockingbirds that are ubiquitous here in the city.
Ron