I've mentioned before how it is a great occasion for me to hear the Blackbird resume singing for the first time in the year. This usually happens in February or March in the North West of England where I do be. It's like the first Snowdrop flowers appearing at the end of Winter or the first buds of blossom at the beginning of Spring.
I haven't any "proper" sound recording equipment so I've been using my little Panasonic camcorder to record any interesting sound and extracting the audio from the resulting video file. That is what I have done with this recording made this evening (Wednesday March 4th) Here is the Blackbird Song in an MP3 format (3.6MB) I may make a Flash video of it showing the waveform display, if I can figure out how to do it.
Over the years I've noticed that the song develops as the year progresses. From a stuttering, though still beautiful, collection of doublets, triplets and assorted calls to a full bodied fully formed song.
The Blackbird will listen to other male Blackbirds and copy a segment of that birds song if it likes it, and incorporate that into its own song. I've heard them practice and develop little riffs over the course of Spring and Summer. Just think of that for a few moments, the little fellah sits there on his favourite perch checking out his rivals song. There must be a process in his mind that critically analyses the song and then goes "Oooo, I like that, I can work with that". He then weaves it into his own song and hopefully attracts a female with his artistry. So in this way the female too has a say as to what is deemed to be a "good" song.
1 comment:
Beautiful stuff, Tao! I remember reading in Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (I think it was) about how bird songs change and evolve over time. I think it had more to do with generational change, but still.
Hearing the song of that blackbird gives me an idea, but I don't think I'll have time to act on it for a while... maybe in coming days.
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