Creative Ornamentation

Trills. They’re common musical ornaments, and sometimes they can be decorated even more with little additions at the end. This is nothing unusual in baroque and classical music, but certainly not something one would expect when the singers are…Dark-eyed Juncos.

Here’s an example of typical Junco songs – the lovely, jingling trills we typically here when these winter residents prepare to leave our Ohio back yards and parks in April. There are two birds singing, and you'll hear that one is singing with a faster trill than the other. You'll see on the sonogram that the two birds' songs look quite different - differences beyond the trill speed and general tone quality we may be able to perceive.

Remember the post I did on trills a while back? I recorded these two birds at the Holden Arboretum in Lake County on March 7th, and no trilling Pine Warblers or Chipping Sparrows would be singing in NE Ohio at that time.
 

Juncos that winter farther south migrate north through Ohio in the early spring, briefly joining those that overwintered with us. We hear a lot of jingling Junco trills for a short while, and then they all move to their breeding territories. But it’s a little different in the far NE corner of Ohio, and I’m learning that it’s even more different than I realized. 

Juncos nest in Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula, extreme eastern Cuyahoga, and parts of Summit County. During my participation in the second Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas, we found that Juncos were actually quite common nesters. They often have two broods, and Junco fledglings can be seen in June and later. 

Also, they are nesting close to people as well as in the expected hemlock ravines. They can be found nesting next to houses and other human structures, and even in hanging baskets! Geauga Park District naturalist Linda Gilbert took this photo of a nesting Junco at a shelter on her Geauga County property. 

So..back to the question of the trills. Juncos nesting outside of their typical hemlock ravines means that from later spring into the summer, it’s actually possible that a singing Junco could be in the same habitat as a singing Chipping Sparrow and a singing Pine Warbler. Normally, habitat and season should make this relatively easy to sort out, but not anymore in this corner of the state!

Finally, some of these Juncos are singing more complex songs than the expected Junco trills. This adds one more challenge for a listener to negotiate.

The first time I heard an unusual Junco song, I recorded it simply because it was rather curious. The location was Cottonwood Hollow, which is one of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s beautiful nature preserves. This preserve is in eastern Lake County, and here’s the song: 

Did you catch that interesting little turn at the end of each song? 

 

The Junco sang exactly this song over and over. You'll hear something similar - but even more interesting - later in this post.

I recorded that song back in early July, 2012. I didn’t think any more of it till this year, when I was encouraged by two of my naturalist friends to record Juncos they’d heard singing unusually complex songs. 

Linda Gilbert thought I should go to the Affelder House, which is part of The West Woods in the Geauga Park District.  She’s heard unusual Junco songs there in previous years. (You can find a photo of the Affelder House under "facilities" at The West Woods link).

Almost immediately after arriving, I heard this:

Did you hear - and see - that emphatic little ending? He sang this song quite a bit, but he also switched to a straight trill. Both song types are in his repertoire. 

I saw Juncos on the ground in the woods by the small parking area gathering nesting material. They were also in the woods next to the building. Still, I had to be sure what I was hearing was indeed a Junco. There's a stand of pines that could possibly have a singing Pine Warbler, and I've seen and heard Chipping Sparrows in similar parking areas at The West Woods. 

It was no small challenge in the shady woods, but I did confirm the singer.  

He and his mate appeared to be gathering nesting material for a second brood. There was another Junco even closer to the building, and he and his mate were also gathering nesting material. The second male's song was a straightforward trill, but it had a different tone quality from the first bird.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of Junco 1's trill and Junco 2's trill. They actually look quite different!

Both Juncos were singing their trill songs until the second Junco invaded the first Junco’s territory. The first Junco immediately switched to the song with the emphatic ending! He continued to do so until the situation calmed down, then eventually switched back to his trill. Even so, a closer look at the sonogram shows a bit of emphasis remains at the end of each trill.

The Junco songs were even more intriguing when I went to Kirtland in Lake County, which is 10 miles north of the Affelder House. This location is west of the Junco I recorded at Cottonwood Hollow, and there are some similarities in the songs.

Haans Petruschke has Juncos nesting all around his home in Kirtland, Ohio, and he knows these birds extremely well. He’s also very knowledgeable about the birds at the nearby Holden Arboretum, where he's been doing a breeding bird survey for years. 

He told me about the unusual songs the Juncos sing near his home. He routinely hears these songs elsewhere in area and they remind him of a Nashville or Tennessee Warbler. He knew they were Juncos - he'd seen them singing - and he eventually was able to get a short video clip for documentation.

I very much wanted to get recordings of this song and look at a sonogram, so I made several trips there to learn about this group of Juncos. The first Junco brood had already fledged, and the Juncos were starting on their second brood. Here’s  a photo he took of one of the fledglings at his home:

Recording took patience and persistence. The birds wouldn’t necessarily sing just because they saw my car pull in to the driveway and they weren’t always close enough to get the recordings I wanted. Fortunately for me, Haans introduced me to two of his neighbors who were happy to allow me to record on their properties as well as his own.

This is the song – isn’t it fabulous?

Can you see from the sonogram that there appears to be two different trills fused into a single song?  (Musicians, do you see how the first part is usually a group of 7 in kind of a 3+2+2?) Take a closer look at a single song:

I occasionally heard at least one of the birds split the song apart and sing one or the other trill separately, which you may have noticed in the recording. This really emphasized the two-trill nature of the composite song.

It wasn't just one bird, either – I could hear four different individuals singing this song! I was able to record two of the other Juncos, and the song pattern was the same.

In addition, these birds occasionally sing the standard single-trill Junco song. If you listen closely to the longer recording below, you’ll hear a Junco change between two different single trills and two different double trills.
 

Haans wrote a very interesting article on the Juncos in NE Ohio; it appeared in the Ohio Ornithological Society’s Summer, 2013 issue of the Ohio Cardinal. I encourage you to scroll down to page 156 to find his fascinating observations in Nesting Juncos in Ohio. 

I hope to hear from other NE Ohio residents about unusual Junco songs, and perhaps I'll be able to expand my collection of Junco songs from this area. Are there Juncos in Cuyahoga and Summit County that sing these song variants?  Does anyone know if NE Ohio's nesting Juncos are year-round residents or if they winter farther south?


If you'd like to learn more about Juncos across the US, there's a very informative educational DVD from Indiana University and the National Science Foundation called The Ordinary, Extraordinary Junco. I'm going to watch this again to see if there's any information I may have missed about eastern song variants and year-round residents.

I'll close this post with a longer recording of one of the Kirtland Juncos singing multiple song types. Why? Because these are beautiful songs from a reclusive little singer, and I'm very happy to have learned about them.

How many trills can you remember?

There’s certainly been a lot of changes in the avian chorus lately, and early migrants head north, later ones arrive and then move on, and summer residents begin to establish their territories.  Some of the bird song identification challenges have actually gotten easier, too, such as my topic today: trills.

In musical language, a trill is a rapid alternation between two adjacent pitches.  In the 17^th century, a trillo was a rapid repetition of the same pitch. 

 “Trill” is also used to describe the songs of birds that alternate quickly between two close pitches AND those that simply repeat the same pitch very rapidly.   Sometimes the verbal description just can’t convey enough information to be truly helpful.  For many people, even listening to recordings of different trills that particular species can sing could be challenging because those trills may be sung at different rates of speed. Even if the entire length of the song is the same, it will sound faster to us if more notes are sung in the same amount of time. 

For example, here are three Chipping Sparrows.  Their song is described in the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America as “…a dry, chipping rattle on one pitch.”  That description is accurate, but what if you didn't know that they can sing faster or slower versions of their song?  You could easily assume that these are different species.

And then there's the Dark-eyed Junco.  “Song a loose trill, suggestive of Chipping Sparrow but more musical.”  More musical in what way?  I think it's a little sweeter, more jingling, and sounds like it has a less dry, abrupt cutoff at the end. (How's that for subjective?) And this one, too, can be sung at different speeds!

In my third Junco example, there are two Juncos singing close to each other at the Holden Arboretum in April.  One is singing a faster song than the other, and one could easily assume that two different bird species were singing.



The Swamp Sparrow's song is “…a loose trill, similar to Chipping Sparrow’s but slower, sweeter, and stronger.”  In this recording, you'll also hear other birds of marshes and wetlands in the background.  

And what about the Pine Warbler? “Song a trill on one pitch like Chipping Sparrow’s song, but more musical, slower.”  The tone quality is different – it’s much richer.  However, a Pine Warbler’s song can actually be faster than a slow Chipping Sparrow or Junco song. 

The Yellow-rumped Warbler also has a trilled song, and that one really is a little slower. It’s described as “Variable song, junco-like but two-part, rising or dropping in pitch, seet-seet-seet-seet-seet, trrrrrrr.”  However, sometimes it just sounds like a slower trill.  See what you think.

Here are Yellow-rumped and Pine Warblers singing very close to each other in April at Tinkers Creek State Nature Preserve in Portage County.  The Pine Warbler’s trill sounds  faster and more dense – there’s more sound and less space between the notes.  The Yellow-rumped Warblers are singing either a slower trill with a bit more space between the notes or the slightly more variable song described in the Peterson field guide.   

When I was standing near the edge of the ponds with pines trees just behind them, though, I had to really concentrate and think this through to be sure I really understood the difference between the songs.  They didn't generally sing one at a time so I could compare and contrast.  Not at all.  They overlapped, they sang simultaneously, and the Yellow-rumpeds sang two different forms of their song.  The quiz came before I could even study the material. 

When you’re first learning these songs, though, you don’t have to memorize all of the trills and compare them all to each other.  There’s an easier place to start.

Habitat and season.  Narrow down your choices.  You won’t hear all of these birds together at the same time in the same place.  Keep it simple.

Which of these trilling singers will be performing together on the same stage?  Unless it’s April, most will not.  I often consult Larry Rosche’s Birds of the Cleveland Region, published by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.  I find this book to be invaluable for knowing when to expect specific species in our area and in which habitats they can be found.

Chipping Sparrows return in April, and they are common in open areas that have a scattering of trees.  They love golf courses, cemeteries, developments, campuses, and meadows with occasional trees, including evergreens.

Juncos are generally more northern birds that spend their winters down here in balmy Ohio.  They begin to sing in late March in advance of their departure, and many more Juncos from farther south sing as they pass through on their way north.  By the end of April, they’re gone EXCEPT for the NE corner of the state.  There, Juncos nest in hemlock ravines and other cool, wooded areas from the Chagrin River valley in eastern Cuyahoga County eastward through Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula, parts of Summit County, and surrounding areas.  Some have even begun to nest closer to people.  They will not typically be found with the Chipping Sparrows, though, as the latter are likely to be in more open areas and are commonly found closer to humans.

Pine Warblers return in April and, not surprisingly, they sing in pines – not a solitary pine or two in an open, developed area, but in a grove or forest of pines.  

The Yellow-rumped Warblers will be gone after April, so you won’t need to worry about sorting them out of the texture after the beginning of May. 

And Swamp Sparrows?  A few may stay here during the winter, but you probably won’t hear them singing before April.  And where will they be singing?  Marshes.  Where are the Juncos and Chipping Sparrows and Pine Warblers?  Exactly.  You’ve got it.  Just watch at the edges of their habitat, though. I once found a Chipping Sparrow singing its slow song near the edge of a marsh and would have assumed it was a Swamp Sparrow had I not investigated closely.

Only in April does it really get messy,  Juncos and Chipping Sparrows are quite likely to be singing together for a brief period of overlap, and if they’re in an area with pines there may be Pine Warblers as well. The Pine Warblers in the pines near the ponds, as at Tinkers Creek State Nature Preserve,  may be singing next to the Yellow-rumped Warblers in the deciduous trees bordering the pond while Swamp Sparrows sing in the nearby marsh. 

Once May gets established, it becomes much easier.  Remember that both Chipping Sparrows and Juncos can sing trills that are fast, slow, or in between, and consider the habitat where you're hearing the trilled song. Listen closely to the Chipping Sparrows, Pine Warblers, Swamp Sparrows and Juncos if you have then, and learn them in their contexts.  Then when everyone gets mixed together next April, you’ll be in a better position to sort them out. 

Oh, and about that first track: Yellow-rumped Warbler, Swamp Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Junco, Chipping Sparrow, Junco, Pine Warbler, and...another Chipping Sparrow.