Mars and I hear the hawks more often than we see them. That’s not unusual in our yard, especially this time of the year. Even though light travels faster, the sounds of spring touch our ears long before the birds that are responsible for them flash before our eyes. Over the years we’ve grown accustomed to the ground-bound early morning “coo” of the sun-seeking Mourning Doves; the daylong stereophonic “caws” of the attention-seeking crows as they migrate through the area; the sex-seeking hook-up pleas of the male Cardinal – high up and hyper – seeking the lowdown from some down-low female of the species; the “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up” from flocks of Robins suddenly realizing that they forgot to go south for the winter; and the perpetual, overlapping chirping of finches and sparrows. And to confuse matters more, a choir of mockingbirds arrives on the scene annually.
How do
these tiny animals put forth such bounteous ballads? We heard the answer to this enigma on WNPR’s
“Bird Note” early the other morning. (We
tune in public radio to drown out the outdoor sunrise chatter.) They were talking specifically about the
Carolina Wren – but it applies to all the avian songsters.
”The answer lies in the songbird’s vocal
anatomy. Unlike the human voice, which comes from the larynx way up at the top
of the windpipe, a bird’s song comes from deep within its body. Birds produce
song in a structure called the syrinx, located at the bottom of the windpipe
where the bronchial tubes diverge to the lungs. The syrinx is surrounded by an
air sac, and the combination works like a resonating chamber to maintain or
amplify sound.
“Evolution has given birds a far more elaborate sound mechanism than it’s given humans. Where we wound up with a flute, songbirds got bagpipes."
The first time we heard the hawks however we
both thought it was one of the squirrels.
The thin, high whistled "kee-eee." sounded more like the
frightened squeal of a quivering tree-rat caught in the soaring raptor’s
shadow, than the warning cry of their taloned predator. I myself expected a deep, bass sound –
similar to the rumbling roar of an amped up eighty-pound black Labrador
Retriever – and certainly not something
more reminiscent of the incessant yips of a petulant Chihuahua.
The next
time ever I heard their voice was when I saw the pair exchanging egg-warming
duties at their nest. Maybe it was a
different call. Perhaps it was the
physical presence and threatening look on its face– but whatever the reason,
this time the hawk-talk sounded much more Lab-like.
Soon enough
the early morning complaints of starved hatchlings awakening from their
involuntary overnight fast – along with the angry responses of the sleep
deprived parents – will shatter our pre-dawn dosing.
We’ll
immediately turn on our radio and hope “Bird Note” is there to explain what it
is that is happening in our front yard hawk nest. I’ve already seen the fear-inducing visage
that goes with an irately uttered “kee-eee”.
So I am perfectly willing to let someone else peer into the raptor
roost, and describe the action to me.
Hear the call of Broad-Winged Hawks at
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