{"id":3849,"date":"2012-07-31T22:53:46","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T04:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/?p=3849"},"modified":"2012-07-31T22:54:54","modified_gmt":"2012-08-01T04:54:54","slug":"the-meaningless-calls-of-red-winged-blackbirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/archives\/3849","title":{"rendered":"The “Meaningless” Calls of Red-winged Blackbirds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Calling male Red-winged Blackbird, 16 May 2009. Photo by jessi.bryan (click for link).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“What does that sound mean<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

“What is that bird saying<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

Questions like these are an important entry point for many people into investigating bird behavior. One moment, they’re simply admiring a song, and the next moment, they’re noticing things — like a sudden switch to Sound B as a hawk flies over.<\/p>\n

Once they’ve noticed it, they can hypothesize about it.\u00a0 Maybe Sound B means danger<\/em>. Maybe the bird is saying, “Look out, there’s a hawk<\/em>!” Maybe Sound B is the aerial predator alarm call<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When people start drawing inferences like this, they’re taking an important first step towards being investigators of animal behavior — ethologists<\/em> — rather than mere admirers of it.\u00a0 It’s an exciting and significant moment in the relationship with nature.<\/p>\n

But it’s only the first step. Most of us don’t have the time or the resources to take the second step, which is to methodically test whether our hypotheses are correct.\u00a0 If we did, we’d often have to face the fact that we were wrong.<\/p>\n

Red-winged Blackbird alarm calls<\/h4>\n

What does a male Red-winged Blackbird say when a hawk flies over?\u00a0 Well, it could be any of these wildly different sounds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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