Pig MIVOUWS SAU DUS ONY BUILT TEN 1D 
_A Helpful Mind — 
Set to Know the Birds By Sound 
By DON L. DANIELSON 
Reprinted from Passenger Pigeon 
Today and long after aborigines first lured birds into range with wild- 
fowl body and sound facsimiles, many persons experience an atunement 
with nature through the sounds that birds produce. The mystic soul-shake 
that is provoked by the loons calling, the piercing ‘kreee’ of the Red-tail, 
the trumpet of the Sandhill and the gutteral socializing of the ubiquitous 
Mallard—these and others have struck delight, wonder, anger and cur- 
iosity into many minds and hearts. 
Amateur birders are often awed when they see and hear profes- 
sional ornithologists identify upwards of ninety percent of their birds in 
the field by sounds—without even sighting the birds! 
We hear also that bluebirds are in trouble today because they are 
small and do not hold well to a pointing dog. This statement helps il- 
lustrate why bird-sound imitations were, no doubt, originally employed: 
to bring the sound-bearer to the table. Dutchmen are credited with the 
first successful attempts to entice birds into an enclosure (called an 
‘ende-kooy’; ‘decoy’ thus derived) by tolling and imitating the sounds of 
wildfowl. Today, imitating calls and other sounds of birds is an art 
practiced by many sportsmen and naturalists. Be reminded of the nvu- 
merous duck-calling contests and, to the delight of their charges, the 
way naturalists purse their lips and squeak on their hands to attract birds 
within eyeshot (Emlen). 
With today’s technology and machinery, recording and examining 
bird sounds has become a finely-honed academic thrust toward more 
fully understanding natural communication. 
How is it, then, that birds make their varied sounds? The larynx, in 
birds as in humans, is at the terminus of the respiratory system. In hu- 
mans, the source of speech and sound is the vocal chords which are 
contained in the larynx. In birds, however, it is the syrinx which produces 
“speech” and other sounds. The syrinx is located at the posterior end of 
the trachea (the opposite end of the trachea where, again, in birds and 
humans, the larynx is found) and where the bronchia branch into the 
lungs (Greenewalt). 
For birds to progress through the phases of 1) nestling and fledgling 
food-begging sounds, to 2) other immature and simple sub-songs, to 3) 
plastic songs, to 4) songs that are becoming crystallized, to 5) full songs, 
appear to require about one year (Nottebaum). With sophisticated Nagra 
