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White-Crowned Sparrow
Jan. 9th, 2019 07:21 pmOk, so how many regional variations of song do White-Crowned Sparrows have?
The song is usually "anglicized" as "Oh sweet Canada, Canada, Canada" or "Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" (depending, I suppose, on how Canadian one is).
The recordings I've heard for how to recognize the song, like on the Petersons's Guide CD-ROM (yes, I know that ages me), or on the singing bird clock my family once had have the "words" in a high-high-low-low-low sequence. But the ones I'd hear in our yard in Louisville sang low-low-high-high-high. And I just listened to a recording on r/whatsthisbird (location noted as Charleston, SC) went low-high-low-low-low.
Is this a combination of instinctual song and learned song smashing into each other? Like, they know the basic song, but which notes go where is learned? Why do they do this?
The song is usually "anglicized" as "Oh sweet Canada, Canada, Canada" or "Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" (depending, I suppose, on how Canadian one is).
The recordings I've heard for how to recognize the song, like on the Petersons's Guide CD-ROM (yes, I know that ages me), or on the singing bird clock my family once had have the "words" in a high-high-low-low-low sequence. But the ones I'd hear in our yard in Louisville sang low-low-high-high-high. And I just listened to a recording on r/whatsthisbird (location noted as Charleston, SC) went low-high-low-low-low.
Is this a combination of instinctual song and learned song smashing into each other? Like, they know the basic song, but which notes go where is learned? Why do they do this?
