A Young Bewick's Wren Learns to Sing

BirdNote^®
A Bewick’s Wren Learns to Sing
By Chris Peterson

This is BirdNote.

         [A young Bewick’s Wren learning to sing]

At this time of year, a very young male Bewick’s Wren is beginning to learn how to sing. Like a human baby, he’ll babble while he experiments with sounds and learns how to organize phrases.

         [Babbling of a human baby]

The young Bewick’s Wren is listening to the song of his father who sings a crisp well-defined song, separated by pauses.

         [Song of adult Bewick’s Wren with three phrases]

Now let’s compare:  Here’s the song of our young Bewick’s Wren:

         [Song of young male Bewick’s Wren]

It’s fuzzy, unfocused, a little rambling. Here’s the adult male again:

         [Song of adult Bewick’s Wren]

It’s fully developed and unique to that male.

Each adult male Bewick’s Wren has his own set of songs. A young wren grows up learning his father’s songs.  But when it matures and moves to its own new territory, it will leave behind the song of its father to create a song that sounds more like its new neighbors.

         [Song of different adult male Bewick’s Wren]

For BirdNote, I'm Mary McCann.

BirdNote gives you the sounds of birds every day, and you can get the sights as well when you follow us on Instagram @BirdNoteRadio.

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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Song of Bewick’s Wrens learning to sing recorded by Donald Kroodsma and found on the CD of Donald Kroodsma’s, The Singing Life of Birds: the Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2005.
Final song of adult Bewick’s Wren ML103223 provided by Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, recorded by M.D. Medler.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2012 BirdNote  May 2017/2019 & July 2026
Narrator: Mary McCann

ID#     BEWR-02-2012-05-01