![]() A phrase that is helpful to you might not mean a thing to someone else. First of all, what’s with the spelling? If they are going to invent a word that means “to assist with memory,” why don’t they spell it normally? (I need a mnemonic just to remember how to spell mnemonic.) Secondly, memory phrases are personal. One of the mos is the Barred Owl calling, “Who cooks for you?” However, there are problems with mnemonics. Ornithologists often attach cute mnemonic phrases to help us remember birdcalls. Thus, if you can somehow master the different calls the male cardinals make, you still have to learn the females’ songs, which are somewhat like the males’ songs, but not quite. To make things even trickier, cardinals are one of the few songbirds where the females also sing. Because of that, listening to birdcall recordings doesn’t always help us. A songbird from the Northeast won’t sound exactly the same as an identical species living in the South or West. Like humans, birds sound different depending on where they were born and raised. There are two other things that complicate learning cardinal calls. It’s not that my wife isn’t a bright person she’s actually a highly respected schoolteacher…well, an elementary schoolteacher, but still. When my wife and I go for our evening walk, she regularly asks me, “What bird is singing?” Most of the time my answer is, “cardinal.” These birds have such a large assortment of calls that she can never seem to sort them out, no matter how hard she tries. Unfortunately, very few birds have enough time to read the field guides, so they don’t always know which sounds they are supposed to make. Typically, field guides only describe the “classic” bird sounds. Like many birds, cardinals have a variety of calls and songs. I listened to it and heard the distinct voice of our old friend the cardinal, and it really was singing “weirdo, weirdo, weirdo.” I had heard cardinals singing this same song plenty of times before, but never once thought they were saying “weirdo,” until this lady pointed it out. A few days later she came in with a recording. Her question caught me by surprise, but I gave it some thought, and after I stopped laughing, I suggested that she try to record the bird. ![]() ![]() A few years ago a lady also heard the “weirdo” call. Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I’ve had this question. Right now you are probably thinking, “No, that’s not what a cardinal sounds like.” Well, it’s either a cardinal or your neighbors, so let’s got with cardinal. I’ll bet the bird you are hearing is a cardinal. Before I answer your question, I have one for you: Are you sure the weirdo sound is coming from a bird? Perhaps the neighbors are trying to tell you something. Let’s just go with the squirrel/cat thing. You are hearing “weirdo, weirdo, weirdo,” and you think it’s a bird, but you don’t want me to tease you about it? Me? That’s like asking a squirrel not to eat birdseed, or a cat not to rub against your leg or a dog not to sniff your…umm, never mind. Do you have any idea what bird says, “weirdo, weirdo, weirdo”? All day long the bird sings (I swear this is what it says, so don’t make a wisecrack) “weirdo, weirdo, weirdo.” No matter what I do I can’t find this bird and it’s driving me nuts. Producer: John Kessler Executive Producer: Chris Peterson © 2014 Tune In to Nature.There’s a bird that’s been singing in my yard and I can’t seem to see what it is. Budney Northern Cardinal recorded by G.A. # Bird sounds provided by the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. It puts forth a cascade of trills and notes, as if singing a duet with itself. The cardinal creates its pure whistle by producing sound in its left and right bronchial tubes simultaneously The Song Sparrow, like many other songbirds, has five to seven pairs of muscles that govern the syrinx. Let’s listen again to the limited vocal range of the cormorant, whose syrinx is controlled by only one set of muscles. ![]() The syrinx is extremely efficient at creating sound, using nearly all of the air that passes through it. In many songbirds, this whole song-producing apparatus is not much bigger than a raindrop. An adjacent air-sac helps build pressure in the syrinx. The syrinx is a set of muscles and membranes located where the two branches of the bronchial tubes converge to become the trachea. Nearly all birds produce sound through an organ unique to birds, the syrinx. This is BirdNote! You just heard the grunt of a cormorant, the whistle of a cardinal, and the song of a Song Sparrow.
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