Under the Canopy

Episode 133: Bird Songs, Decoded

• Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network • Episode 133

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We trace the first hints of spring from fresh snow and maple taps to a deep dive on bird communication with Dr Megan Gall, a sensory ecologist who studies how sound shapes behavior. Practical tips help you build healthier feeders, steward water, and use tech without stressing wildlife.

• decoding chickadee A, B, C, D notes and what D means
• alarm vs mobbing calls and when each is used
• woodpecker drumming as non‑vocal signaling
• seasonal hormones driving song and territory
• why mockingbirds and catbirds mimic and keep learning
• ethical playback and reducing stress at feeders
• cleaning routines and spotting conjunctivitis in house finches
• positioning feeders, adding water, planting natives
• urban tips for attracting nuthatches, titmice, chickadees
• using Merlin spectrograms to see sound

To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code Canopy. C-A-N-O-P-Y


Show Open & Outdoor Updates

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Early Spring Signs & Maple Tapping

Owls, Fireplaces, And Upcoming Shows

SPEAKER_01

As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Oulette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of this strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully, we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. Now, as usual, I did my morning run already with my chocolate lab, Ensign Gunner. And Gunner has his usual friends out there, the uh whose sometimes they show up, although with the sun coming up early, earlier, now they're they're out. So Cooper's another chocolate lab, and then his other buddy Willie is a German short-haired pointer, and they're out running and romping, and we're seeing uh some signs of springs out there. So, you know, we're seeing such things as uh paired up uh foxes. You can tell by the set of tracks. We had some fresh snow, and uh in the fresh snow you can see two sets of tracks, two sets of fox and two sets of coyote tracks this morning. The cardinals are out singing like crazy and making lots of uh spring sounds that uh we're gonna get into a little bit later, I hope. But also that uh mind you, I've had a flock of mallards. There was about 15, now there's about 50 or more in the flock that have been circling around the area, and they they come down and there's a spot on the creek that's opened up and they'll land there and then they walk up and down on the uh shores of the creek. And I know Rocky, who's a Wyman uh dog, he uh saw them there early in the year and jumped, ran after them, broke a toe, and the vet said, Oh, that's bad, and you're not gonna stop this dog from running. We should amputate the toe. And they're like, No, you're not cutting the dog's toe off. But yeah, it was in chasing the mallards, but we hear all that kind of stuff. Now, there's some things that surprise a lot of people, especially where we are in southern Ontario. Uh the first question is, is what's the first true bird of spring? And when I was minister, that was uh Minister of Natural Resources, that was something that was pointed out to me by the people in the ministry. You know, everybody thinks, oh, what's the first bird of spring? A robin. No, not where we are, because what happens is there's robins that live in the Hudson's James Bay lowlands that migrate to Southern Ontario and spend all year in southern Ontario. However, the red-winged blackbird, all of them, the Ontario Southern Ontario is the northernmost region. They all leave, but I haven't heard any blackbird songs or singing yet, or seen any of them, but it should be. And I can think that it'll probably be the next full moon before we see a big turn in the in the spring. And it was very interesting. It 27 years that we've been in this house that we're at, this year was the best year for snow plowing. Sometimes it's like I'm calling my local buddy, the former mayor and counselor there on the council and said, Hey, John, I said, Can you get the uh the snowplow to come out into our street? He's like, Jerry, it was only two days ago. I said, No, no, no. This is from the snow that we had last week because they hadn't showed up yet. And so, but this year it's just like, wow, the the response has been great. So, and I I was out, I was uh the Canada Olympic Game was on yesterday. And my buddy's like, Oh, did you catch that barn burner? You're watching this. I hope so. I said, No, I'm I'm out uh doing my taps for maple syrup. And and Smitty is is like, oh, wait till spring and I'll help you. It don't work like that, Smitty. What happens is when it starts running, you that's when you start tapping. Otherwise you miss it, and I've missed it a few times. I know last year we had boils in January, but this year I got um I ran a bit on the weekend. So I got uh some some test pails out, and uh they were kind of low. But this afternoon and tomorrow I'll be out doing all my taps and getting those all ready to go because the taps start to heal or seal up after about six weeks. So you want to time it just right because if you put the taps in too early, by the time the sap's running, then the uh the they start to heal, and you don't get any sap out of those holes in your re-dealing, anyways. So that's the big thing. And of course, with the maple syrup, the early runs of sap are the sweetest. Later on, they turn a lot darker and they they're not near as sweet. They kind of have of a a different flavor to them, and that's because the sap has been up and down the trees and out to the the buds and back and forth and bacteria, etc. etc. And the amount of sugars inside it are quite a bit different, so you get different flavors. So usually the the first runs are quite sweet, and we're out now doing that. But it it was it was interesting that we're out and we we see all these mallards and hearing uh that and and I'm seeing on Facebook uh there was a report of somebody seeing a bunch of rabbits where they were headless. So the head was just taken off. And everybody's like, oh, that's disgusting, you gotta call the police and take care of that uh right away and on and on and on. And but no, I used to see that fairly bit when I lived at a place called Crooked Creek, where what happened was the actual owls would land and and kill the rabbits, take the heads off, and and I'd go by and I'd see like half a dozen within about fifty yards, seventy-five yards, dead rabbits all headless. And then I up I come along and there's an owl sitting on one, eating the head off the rabbit. So the owls are back in the area, and it's good to see them and a lot of different things. And I was out walking and gunner's owners there, it's it's I I talk about the the fireplace insert. Well, I got to get it clean. And the because I ran this insert all year long, as I've been telling people, and it's been going great, but it's a real learning process. And now I can tell it's kind of like the draft isn't as great. So I'm figuring, well, when you run it 24-7 for basically November, December, January, and now we're into February that long, you've got to get some creoso buildup. But uh, you know, get it cleaned. And my regular guy, he packed up and moved to Prince Edward County, so I'm looking for a new guy. And what I'll probably do is get them to come in and clean it, watch how they do it. And I've got a lot of the rods and and cleaning brushes as well. Now back in the 80s, I worked for a company called International Imports, and we used to sell chimney brushes. And the owner used to tell me, look, for stainless steel, you use a plastic brush. For the all the clay tiles, all the clay chimneys, you use a wire brush. So I get uh clay, I get the plastic brushes because what happens apparently the the metal brushes will score the stainless steel on the uh and the score the the metal on the piping, and then with moisture condensation, et cetera, et cetera, and it's not always stainless, some of them are are not stainless, then you got to start to get rust and you get more wear. So I'll be getting that done. Now, the other thing is we're coming up to the season when I start doing shows, and a lot of people wonder what shows I'm doing. So March the 13th to the 15th, I'll be at the Quinty Sportsman Boat and RV show in Belleville. And it's at the Quinty Sports and Wellness Center. And it runs uh the shows run from on uh Friday from 10 to 8, Saturday from 9 to 8, and Sunday 9 to 6. And they've got, if you haven't been to this show, I gotta tell you, the guy who does this show probably is the best organizer of any of the shows that I've been to. They do all the hockey arenas, they do the the halls, the hallways as well, and plus not only that, but they have a couple of auditoriums that they fill there, and the place is packed. And I mean packed with product and packed with with retailers as well as as customers as well, because he does a great job in marketing it. And here in Oshawa, where I've seen it like an hour and a half away, where there's billboards here for this show in Belleville coming up, which is a great sign of a good marketing and does a good job. And we get people from Ottawa, and I answer a lot of questions. I have a lot of a lot of different products that we bring out to the shows. We do a lot of testing and things like that. Now, the week after that show, I'll be at the Toronto Sportsman Show, which runs March the 19th to the 22nd at the International Center in Mississauga on Airport Road. And it's uh open daily, of course. And a lot of outdoor activity. This is the 78th year for this show, and I've been doing that show with various companies right back into the 80s, where I helped out with a number of different businesses and did a lot of shows. So we've been going to the Toronto Sportsman Show, but I'm gonna have a podcast about that show later on, and we'll go to the details about it. Now, a little bit of a drumroll. Every time we do these shows, we bring out some new products. So this year, the new products that we had, now last year we had um the morning glory, the year before that we had the apple cinnamon, and we'll have our usual regular chaga tea, the chai tea, the chaga chai, chaga green, chaga apple cinnamon, chaga, which is morning glory we call it, which is roasted dandelion root, roasted chicory root and chaga. And this year, new to the show, we'll have Chaga mint, which is a mint tea, which has been great. And of course, we'll have my usual chaga powders and chaga grinds and things like that. And of course, and at the shows we also bring out Chaga soap, which we don't have online simply because it's too expensive to ship and the costs make it cost prohibitive when we do all shipping with it. But this year, the newest one that we have that's just going over like gangbusters with all the the uh testers is a new Chaga turmeric, ginger, and black pepper tea. And it appears to be going wonderful out there. So we look forward to seeing you all out there. And we look forward to any questions or anything else that you may have about the shows, and I'll mention it through the next podcast coming up before to build up to those shows. Now, I mentioned the Cardinals out, the chickadees out, you know, and this morning I had my I, as the usual, I had my Merlin app out checking, and there was some junkos and some nuthatches that were singing like crazy out while I was running gunner. But this time for this show, we've got a special guest, Dr. Megan Gall, to talk about something special she's working on. Welcome to the program, Megan. Hi, nice to be here. Well, it's great to have you on board. Tell us a bit, tell us a bit about your whereabouts are you located, first of all, so our international listeners know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I'm at Vassar College. We're in the Hudson Valley. So we're about uh halfway between New York City and Albany.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. And so you're at Vassar College. Now uh about yourself. What's your background, Megan?

SPEAKER_02

So I'm a sensory ecologist, uh, and what that means is I'm interested in how the environment shapes the kinds of sensory systems that have evolved in animals. So how the, you know, are they in a forest? Are they in a meadow? Are they someplace where there's a lot of background noise? How is that gonna shape their hearing, which is primarily what I work on?

SPEAKER_01

So where does somebody get an education to be a sensory uh ecologist?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I I as an undergrad, I was an ecologist. I thought I was gonna wander around chasing large mammals, studying reproductive biology. Uh and then I did a master's degree where I shifted my focus to foraging behavior and birds and trying to understand how their vision might affect the way that they're able to capture prey. Right. Um, and I did that just because my advisor said, hey, if you switch to this project on bird vision, you can come to the UK with me and pick up a piece of equipment that I want to learn how to use. And I was young and hadn't been many places, so I said, Oh, okay, that sounds great. Let's go. I'll work on bird vision. Um and that's when I was first introduced to sensory ecology, and I just found it absolutely fascinating. I've been a musician for all my life. Um, and so at that point I realized I wanted to combine my love for the outdoors and for animals with my love of sound. And so I ended up um doing a PhD at Purdue University in Indiana, um, working on auditory processing in a number of birds, including red-winged blackbirds, which are also our first sign of spring here in the Hudson Valley.

SPEAKER_01

Well, very good. So you're a musician. What instruments do you play, or what instrument do you play? Um, I play percussion. Oh, do you?

unknown

Yeah.

New Chaga Products For Spring

SPEAKER_01

Now, I I I'll tell a little story because that's what podcasts are a little bit about, is when I decided to go back and take business when I went back to school when I was uh like 30. Um, I thought I needed to do something that it would be that would be outside the norm, just because I was in the business world. I was a national sales coordinator, handed all the consumer trade shows for a major corporation, et cetera, et cetera. And I went back in in the business and so I took and I learned how to play the violin so I could ensure myself that I would be able to compete. And just I always had a bit of um dyslexia, which I still have. Uh so uh schooling wasn't always the easiest for me, but I figured with uh practice and everything else, so I learned how to play the violin as a way to make sure that I could handle what I needed to do to be back in school. It's a great outlet. Yeah, it is. Um now I uh now I play guitar. So and what happened was I I got a guitar and I I told my son, I said, now this would probably be oh, probably March or April when I told my son, I said, I'm gonna be able to play a song by by the end of um um August. And so the next month I said, here, come here. And I started and I started playing songs. He said, You said August. It's now a month, only a month later. I said, Well, that's what happens when you dedicate yourself to something. And it's just like you taking your education and your sensory ecologist and all the things, and you're now going to uh to take your uh PhD, another PhD, which is great to hear. But tell us a bit about um Vassar, first of all, and how big is Vassar? Or is it at uh what level is it? D2, D3, D1? Tell us a bit about it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so we're what you would call a small liberal arts college, which means that we only have undergraduates. Um, we're about 2,400 students. So all the work that we do here, all of our research is with our undergraduate students. So we don't have graduate students or postdocs. We're a D3 school. Um sports actually have become very popular here, um, which was not always the case. Um I I think the athletes are often some of our best students because they have to focus and and really plan their timeout. So it's I often have a lot of athletes in my lab. Uh they often want to be outside as well. So what's the what are the and we collaborate with a lot of people at at bigger schools as well. So work on research with with folks outside that have sort of more access to um to other kinds of resources that we don't necessarily have at a small school.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So what sports are are popular now at the school?

SPEAKER_02

Um women's rugby is extremely popular. We've got a pretty good women's rugby team. Um a lot of a lot of under the radar sports. So we've got a good fencing team, men's uh volleyball is very good here, women's basketball. Um we don't have football or any of those things. No hockey, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01

Well, um a lot of uh Canadians um get scholarships down in the States for different sports. And I know uh my son played rugby and he was in Washington at a tournament and got an offer from St. Mary's. Um and so when he came back and he said, Dad, this the school, uh St. Mary's came to me and asked me to come to their school for a scholarship. And I said, Oh, great, where's the paperwork? And he said, I don't want to go to school in the States. I said, What? He said, now he's kicking his butt thinking, oh, maybe I should have done that. He had a couple of offers, but and that was through rugby. So and I know uh I sit on the local board of the local college here, and I try to initiate um generating revenue, alternative revenue from government sources uh other than government sources. And sports is is a great opportunity. I know in the States that it generates huge amounts of funds for uh universities and colleges. Um, but up here it's it doesn't generate anything, which is sad because uh the basketball team that we have uh at the the college where I'm on the board uh does very well, and every game is absolutely full to capacity. So I know at the board meeting I said, oh, well, how much do you charge for admittance? Nothing. What do you mean, nothing? Why not? Because you sell out you I mean you fill the the the the auditorium every single game. Why aren't you charging a well, you know, we never thought about that. And I said, Okay, so what about sponsorships? Do you have any sponsors or or do you have any advertising for it uh to promote? No. But those are different things, and different colleges can look at it different ways. But I see it uh being on the local board as the potential revenue generator. But I'm the lone soul barking up that tree and nobody else is chasing after it. So tell us about what you're on the show about, Megan, uh the sensory aspect of birds and and what you're working on that that I think my instrument uh my listeners would be very interested in.

Guest Intro: Dr. Megan Gall

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so our current project, we're working with three species of birds that you should be pretty familiar with in southern Ontario. You mentioned one of them already, the white-breasted nuthatch. Um, we also work with tufted tit mice. They have the narrowest range in Canada, so they get into very southern Ontario and southern Quebec, but um they they tend to sort of their range stops uh in the northern US. And then black capped chickadees, which should be a common sight across a lot of Canada. Um and I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with the chickadee-dee-dee that you hear all winter long. And so that's a vocalization that they use. Uh we call it a mobbing call, but it's actually extremely complex. So it has four different note types: an A, a B, a C, and a D note. And like human language, they can take those notes and they can combine them in different ways to tell other individuals different things. So if you hear a song or a chickadee vocalization that has a lot of D notes, so D D D D D, that is usually an indication that there's a predator around. And that predator is currently not super dangerous, but could be dangerous in the future. And it's called a mobbing call because what it does is it recruits other chickadees to come and help harass that predator. So if you've ever seen a saw wet owl or a small hawk being chased around by a group of birds, that's mobbing behavior. You see it a lot with um uh like red tails and uh um blackbirds or um and crows, they'll they'll chase sort of bigger birds out of the neighborhood. And so it's a vocalization that they use when they're potentially in danger but not in danger yet. And then they also use That vocalization to communicate with other species. So tufted tit mice, white-breasted nuthatches are often sort of associated with a group of chickadees and will also help respond uh to that vocalization. And so, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

No, just you you're mentioning uh chickadees and the um nuthatch uh helping out basically uh there's a a bit of a size category in the birds that we're talking about here, correct?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so these are all pretty small song birds. A chickadee weighs about 10 grams, 10 to 11 grams is sort of uh typical. Uh nuthatches and tit mice are a little larger, they weigh about 20 grams. So these are pretty small birds we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01

So the small birds are the ones that help each other small birds. So when you get into, like I'm hearing cardinals today or blue jays, and and I know that they have some distress calls as well, I believe. Uh you're the expert on that, so you can tell me. But do would they come to a chickadee call?

SPEAKER_02

They might pay attention to it. Cardinals and blue jays are big enough that the predators they're worried about might be slightly different than the predators um chickadees and titmice and nuthatchers are worried about. So a saw wet owl, for instance, um, is probably too small to take down a blue jay.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

They're worried about maybe a slightly larger hawk or um a ground-based mammalian predator. Right. There certainly is communication between cardinals and blue jays and chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, that distress call in the um the blue jays will often send um smaller birds away from a food source. So the blue jays can kind of manipulate that call to spook small birds and get access to food. But we don't think currently that they're um they're sort of coordinating their behavior in the same way that's that group of small birds is coordinating.

What Is Sensory Ecology

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So when I'm Megan, when I'm walking through the bush, people think I'm nuts, which probably right. Um I hear a call, I'll emulate that call, and the birds will respond to me a lot of the times. What I try to do is the same, but quite frankly, I had no idea about the ABC and D notes that uh a bird would would uh do. So is there ways to call these these to get a reaction from them or to find more information? Like with when you're communicating with birds like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I mean, if you were trying to mimic it, or if your Merlin app, which is a great app, um, if you were to play back uh vocalization, ones with D notes are likely to attract birds towards you because the purpose of that call, again, is recruitment. Some of the other notes are um are more like contact calls, so just saying, hey, I'm over here, where are you? And then another bird will respond with another, say, A note, I'm over here. So different note combinations they'll respond to in different ways. And certainly um D notes are great. And then if you were to do as we move into the breeding season, if you were to play back a song or try and emulate a song, that also would likely attract um males and females to you, males because they're they think there's an intruder on their territory and so need to check it out. Females, a potential mate.

SPEAKER_01

I I and different birds communicate different ways. I recall as uh when I was minister that um I had to respond to somebody that was um a piliated woodpecker was constantly at somebody's house hitting on a metal siding. And um I didn't realize or know until it was pointed out to me that uh the pileated woodpecker um does pecking like that in order to say this is my territory, and that's their their claim to this is my area to stay out of the area. Is that are you seeing the same with some of these um different birds like that? And is that correct from what you're seeing with woodpeckers?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so woodpeckers do a behavior called drumming, which is just like what you said, it's it's it's a percussive rhythm on usually a hollow tree, right? So they are often around hollow trees because they're attracted to them as food sources. That's where there's a lot of insect activity, and so that's where they're gonna get food. Hollow trees are also great resonators. So you're talking about your guitar earlier. Yeah. The the sound that you're making on your guitar is from the strings. But if you just had the strings, it would be very, very quiet. Right. And so the reason you have that body of the guitar is to act as a resonator. What it does is it amplifies some of the frequencies that you're playing and allows them to be broadcast at a higher amplitude than they would otherwise. Right. And that's what the tree is doing for the woodpecker's drumming. It's it's broadcasting that. And then humans made these beautiful structures with metal on them that are hollow. And so woodpeckers love, especially piliated's love to come and um and drum on houses. Some other birds will use other kinds of non-so vocalizations means that you're producing it with your airways and and your throat. So birds have a syrinx or two syrinxes actually, and we have a larynx, we have folds that vibrate in our throat, and that's what's producing the sound. And then our mouth is kind of that resonator. It's going to add some additional um complexity to the noises that we're making. But animals can make non-vocal signals as well. We do it frequently where we clap our hands together, that would be a non-vocal communication signal. So woodpeckers do drumming, and then there's actually a lot of birds who will do it by hitting their wings together. So if you were to follow hummingbirds, a lot of them will do these very impressive aerial displays and then they'll dive. And as they dive, they're hitting the backs of their wings together and making kind of a noise. Oh, yeah. Um, and so so there's lots of different ways that animals can produce sound, even though we think of sort of songs and calls when we think of birds.

SPEAKER_01

So why are hummingbirds doing that?

SPEAKER_02

That's well, why that's a great question. Let me answer it in two ways. So one is like, why did it evolve? Right. And that question is a little complicated. We don't know. Probably the aerial display came first, right? So being a good flyer is really important for a hummingbird. And if you can demonstrate how good you are at diving a long distance, stopping rapidly, that probably is gonna show that you're a good mate, able to defend resources, able to provide for your kids. Um, and it may be that as a byproduct of that diving, their wings would get really close together, right? So they'd tuck their wings into their body when they're diving.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

Decoding Chickadee Calls

SPEAKER_02

And and over time, they may have unintentionally made um some sounds, and that may have been attractive because it it got the attention of females. So that's kind of the evolutionary reason. Um, functionally, again, it's probably to demonstrate to a female sort of the high quality so that she'll be interested in mating with him.

SPEAKER_01

So most of this would be early in the mating season. You wouldn't see it later on when migration starts and they're heading south again.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. When we're talking about songs, those are typically going to be in the spring when animals are establishing their territories if they're migratory, or starting to get back into pair bonds if they're resident species. Um and that's that's those two animals trying to move out of their winter. I need to be around a lot of birds and forage together and help protect each other from predators, too. I'm now in this little family unit, right? And I need to fit find a place to put my nest and enough food for my kids and then be able to raise my kids in peace. So they're using those signals just like we're using signals to try and coordinate these social behaviors. And they're gonna use different kinds of signals different times of the year.

SPEAKER_01

So are there other calls that uh things like uh the chickadees and the nuthatches use, such as a feeding call?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so that that chickadee call for tit mouses and uh chickadees that can be used for feeding. So they'll put a lot of A notes and sometimes B and C notes if they found a food resource and they want to tell other individuals that it's there.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

So by having these different sorts of um of notes, they can combine them in different ways to make different versions in different circumstances. So using those earlier notes typically conveys a less stressful connotation. It usually says there's a food resource, or I just want to let you know where I am, etc. They do have some other calls as well. So early in the spring, you might see two birds really close together. Um, and they'll make this thing called a gargle call, which is I can I can imitate the songs and I can imitate the chickadee calls, but I can't do the gargle call. Um, but it is a sound that they make when they're very close to one another and a fight is about to break out.

SPEAKER_03

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So songs say, Here, this is my territory, you should stay out, and then another bird will sing their song and say, No, this is my territory, you should stay out. And if they're disputing a boundary, they'll get closer and closer, their songs will become more frequent, and then eventually they'll change to this much softer, almost whispered song, the gargle. And that says, No, I'm really, really angry right now. And if you don't move away, we're gonna get into a physical fight. And uh, when you're walking around in the woods in the spring, usually around here, sort of early March is when we'll typically see a lot of this behavior. You might see two chickadees on the ground with their feet locked together, pecking at each other, pulling out feathers, really uh establishing that territory boundary.

SPEAKER_01

And that's where my wife runs out no, no, no, let's get along.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

So um, this uh gargling is kind of like the Inuit throat singing, is it not?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'm not that familiar with the Inuit throat singings, but potentially.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's uh where uh usually two females get together and and uh they resonate um a special sound coming out by singing very close to each other. Anyway, it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_06

Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Viola. And I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Ann and I will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm. Now what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.

SPEAKER_07

I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.

SPEAKER_07

From athletes, all the other guys would go golfing, me and Garchomp Turkey, and all the Russians would go fishing. The scientists. Now that we're deforesting a thing, it's the perfect transmission environment for line.

SPEAKER_08

Chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, marinated 40, you will taste it.

SPEAKER_06

And whoever else will pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_01

And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, I'm here in Peterborough with uh Rudy from Peterborough. And Rudy, can you tell us about uh your success with your Chaga cream?

SPEAKER_00

I love it. Uh I have uh a rare skin disease called Grover's disease, and the doctors really couldn't give me anything that was lasting uh to take away the itch. So when I met Jerry and started using the cream, it was just wonderful. I find it alleviates the itch within 30 seconds, which is just significant, no question about it. So you think I'm happy with it? Absolutely.

Birds, Drumming, And Non‑Vocal Signals

SPEAKER_01

All right, thanks Rudy, really appreciate that. We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about, and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code Canopy. C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package, and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening. Back to the episode. So, is there a way that we can attract birds to our feeders with specific calls?

SPEAKER_02

You could. So you could bring birds into your feeders with vocalizations. I I probably would advise generally against that, right? Especially using mobbing calls because they can induce a stress response in the birds, right? They're hearing there's a predator and I need to come and help my friends out. And so if you're doing that frequently, um, you know, you could be raising the stress levels of your birds. Right. I would say finding a good location that's going to keep them relatively safe from predators, providing a really high quality food, providing a water source, making sure you're cleaning your feeders regularly so you're not spreading disease. Those are the best ways to get birds while keeping stress levels low.

SPEAKER_01

Um so how do you tell if there's disease in your feeder? Is there a way to identify that?

SPEAKER_02

Um, yeah, you might see animals um with recently there's been a lot of conjunctivitis. So in house finches, which are also small birds, they have kind of a red head and a stripy breast. You'll see them um pretty much all year long. They're really susceptible to diseases of the eye. And so when they come in close contact with one another or onto a feeder that has um sort of feces or other kinds of remnants of the birds feeding there, you might see their eyes kind of swollen or crusty. That's a really good indication that you should take your feeder down for a little while because it means there's conjunctivitis in the area. But generally, I would advise every few days, you know, bringing your feeder inside, washing it in soapy water, maybe a very dilute bleach solution solution, and putting that back out with seed again. That'll just keep anything that might be um growing there or or in your seed or on the feeder from spreading to other birds, right? Because we're putting them in much closer contact when they're feeding at this concentrated food source than they would be at normally.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I well, normally we clean it out once it's empty. But I have to tell you that it's probably been over a month since they've emptied it this time. And we get a lot of uh junkles and nuthatches coming right now. Uh but other than that, and I don't see any indication, so it's from what I'm hearing here, it's probably better to put not as much food in to make sure they clean it out so that we can clean it out a little bit more often.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, it depends again on on the density in which species are coming. So I'm not trying to uh to say that any of your your listeners are doing anything wrong if they're not cleaning their their feeder more regularly, but certainly if you're seeing any signs of disease, it's a really good idea to to do a deep cleaning. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01

So now is it the intense, is there anything to the intensity and how loud? Because you know, a morning does the doves does that morning that soft coup. Um but um so it's a very soft sound, but is is like because when I'm talking to my dog Gunner, it doesn't matter if I tell him to sit in English or I say it in Ukrainian, uh should I, that uh um he'll come and he'll and he knows just by the tone of my voice what to do. Is it the same thing with birds where the in level of intensity has um quite a bit of impact on birds as well? So a very soft D note as compared to a very fast, hard D note wouldn't would imply something different?

Using Calls, Ethics, And Feeder Health

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I think with birds, we're thinking about so they certainly can modulate amplitude. Um and when you're modulating amplitude, we think probably the most likely reason you're doing that is to change the how far your signal is moving in the environment. So when you're making a signal, you're doing two things. One is that you're trying to attract the attention or convey information to what we would call an intended receiver. That's the other bird that you want to get that information. But there are also lots of unintended receivers that are eavesdropping on what signals the birds are making. And so it's always a balance for birds in figuring out how far do I want this signal to go that I'm gonna get all of the listeners I want, but not tell a predator or a competitor where I am or what resources are available. And so they can modulate the amplitude of signals to change how far that thing will, well, what we call propagate in the environment. Um, different kinds of vocalizations typically have different amplitudes. So a song, for instance, is probably gonna travel relatively far because you're advertising your site. If you're a bird who, like the redwing blackbirds, for instance, you're arriving in a new place and you're trying to set up a territory and find a mate really quickly because you want to get your breeding season going before you have to migrate again, your signal might travel pretty far. Redwing blackbird calls are very loud, right? Whereas a chickadee, they spent the entire winter with their mate typically, and so they know each other pretty well already. And mostly they're doing that just to help re-establish pair bonds and also to figure out where the edges of territories with males are going to be, because they may have spent the winter in a group with those males all getting along so that they can fight off predators and find food resources, and then suddenly the spring comes and now everybody wants to be separate from one another. So amplitudes probably um being modulated mostly across different kinds of vocalizations, but we do think that the structure of the vocalizations may convey something about the emotional state of the animal. So if they make very high frequency sounds and very tonal sounds, so a tone would be like bah, right? One frequency, that usually indicates that they're afraid. Okay. So a lot of birds you'll hear alarm calls, which are different than mobbing calls. An alarm call says there is a predator around and it is dangerous right now, and everyone should get out of here. And so a lot of birds will make these high frequency sounds, and they're high frequency for a number of reasons. One is that when you're fearful, your body kind of tenses up, and so your vocalizations tend to go up. If you're giving a speech and you're worried about it, a lot of times your voice will get sort of high and break. Um, another one is that bigger birds like hawks typically don't hear those high frequencies as well. And so they're they're maybe less likely to be perceived by a predator. And then they also don't travel through the environment very well. They degrade really rapidly in forests, and so they're not gonna go as far, which means you have a lower probability that an eavesdropper is gonna find it.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Whereas that D note is really kind of low frequency, it's got really sharp, what we call onsets. So an onset would be how long does it take to go from no sound to full amplitude? Right. So if you clap your hands, that has a really sharp onset. And that's really good for localization because we use the time of arrival at our two ears to figure out where sounds are coming from. It's right in what we would call the sweet spot of their hearing. So it's the frequencies that they hear the best. And so that sound you want to be able to hear and you want to be able to localize. Whereas this alarm call, you only want the birds really close to you that are in danger to hear it, and then you don't want it to go very far, and you don't want the predator to know where you are.

SPEAKER_01

Interesting. So roughly, so we're talking about chickadees and and not edges, and how many calls would they have on average? Like a chickadee, how many different types of calls would they have?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so we put them into categories. They have that gargle call, they have the song, so the fee bee, or for tit mouse, Peter, Peter, Peter. The the chickadees, their song is pretty consistent. Pretty much everybody just sings that fee bee.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Um, the tit mouse songs, there are more, there's more variety. Um, and then they will have vocalizations that they use to communicate with their um their offspring. So what we call begging calls, those are young birds saying, I'm hungry, please come and feed me.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Um, and the idea is that once the parent feeds them, they'll be quiet. And so you're kind of exploiting your parent by making this loud vocalization, you might attract the attention of predators. So parents want to feed you, so you'll shut up. Okay. Um and then the the chickadee calls, which they can modulate a lot, these alarm calls. So, you know, probably five or six different classes of vocalizations.

SPEAKER_01

Five or six. Now, uh what what bird, uh like song bird basically, would you have any idea it has the most um different songs? Like, because when I'm walking, I kind of monitor it. I find the robin actually has a a very wide range of different calls compared to other other birds, but I I I have no idea. And that was this question I always wanted to ask somebody is who uh which bird has the most variation or most amount of songs out there?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, of the the birds that you're likely to encounter um where you are, I would say probably mocking birds or catbirds. So they're what we call mimics. So mocking birds can um can learn the song. Of other species and produce them. And they're also what we call open-ended learners. Right. And so humans are like this, but some birds they have what we call a critical period. When they're young, they'll learn their vocalization in their first year. And then basically that's it. That's the vocalization, the song that they sing going into the future. Some birds have sort of longer periods where they might have two years they learn their vocalization over. And then some are open-ended learners. So humans are like this. We're best at learning when we're young. If you expose children to different languages early on in life, they're it's much easier for them to learn. And then as you get older, it becomes harder, but not impossible. And so mocking birds are like this. They can learn kind of basically all through their life. And they can also generate sort of new variants of their own vocalizations sort of on the fly. And so we think birds like that are impressing females by making lots so many different kinds of vocalizations that the female's like, wow, you're really impressive being able to produce all these different things. For a chickadee, it's more about um I'm producing the vocalization exactly the same way every time. Look how impressive it is that I can get exactly the same sounds over and over and over again. So there's kind of a diversity of ways that um that animals produce that. And then cat birds are very similar to mocking birds, so they also have a lot of we'll do a lot of mimicking.

SPEAKER_01

Um so mocking birds, uh you'll have to uh because is that a certain class, or is that you're speaking specifically of um the the the the breed mocking bird?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so we have uh we have the mocking bird, but they're in a group of mimics that include other kinds of birds like catbirds. Uh that's a good question. I don't know if the range of catbirds goes up into southern Ontario to have to look that up. But they're kind of an all um an all-gray bird, probably about 40 grams. They've got a black head. They're called catbirds because their own vocalization sounds like meow, meow.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So it sounds kind of like they're meowing.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Um and so they're also in the same group of mimics with mocking birds.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, what about blue jays? Where do they fall into?

Amplitude, Emotion, And Alarm vs Mobbing

SPEAKER_02

Blue jays are um part of the corvid group, I believe. And so corvids include things like crows and ravens. So they're most closely associated with uh with them, tend to be very intelligent birds, tend to be um tend to eat lots of different kinds of food items. Um yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Now I I recall one issue that uh my brother-in-law was saying, it was used to drive him crazy, that he had a cardinal that would show up and basically attack his own image. And it happened in a different on the mirror, on the side mirror of the car, or it would see its image in a window, and the male would would start pecking like crazy and fly at it and everything else. That's a um a normal behavior, obviously, but but but do they ever figure out it's a it's a it's an image?

SPEAKER_02

So far, it seems like not. Um I'm not sure if there have been any specific studies that have followed like an individual over their lifetime. Right. Um, but you know, mirrors are very new inventions. Yes. And without any way to tell each other, hey, there was a mirror over there and that was doing something weird and that guy wouldn't go away. Um, it can be hard in a short-lived animal to have them evolve the ability to understand that it's a reflection and not another bird. Right. Um, so I don't know of any studies looking at that explicitly, but that would be very interesting to follow individuals over their lifetime. It may also be that certain individuals are more likely to do it or to not notice. And so we see them over and over again, and other individuals may be less likely to engage in those behaviors. But um, yeah, I think it's kind of an open question.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it was because uh it was only cardinals that basically I hear about this from anybody else. And I've seen it a couple of times at my own property where what is that cardinal doing? And it's attacking the glass. Oh, uh, but it's only cardinal male cardinals that uh appear to do it. And you know, I I explain it as a protecting territory and chasing other males away from the area. But uh I don't know of other birds that uh participate in that activity.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and male cardinals are very aggressive, so they'll they'll defend their territories um to a very high degree, which probably explains why they're the ones you're seeing mostly and pecking out with those.

SPEAKER_01

So this Merlin app that uh I use and you mentioned is a good app, does it identify, is there a way to identify specific bird types of calls rather than just chickadee call a chickadee distress call or things like that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so the Merlin app will talk about um if you go to the part that is vocalizations or behavior, it'll have a list of the different kinds of um sounds that the animals make. Okay. It also has a Shazam-like feature now. So if you hold your Merlin up, Merlin app up, you can record what's going around um around you, and it'll try and identify the birds from that recording, which is really uh a helpful feature.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yeah, because I use Merlin quite a bit, uh, especially uh it lately, as I mentioned in when uh we led into the podcast that uh uh hearing a lot of different birds and cardinals and things like that. I think spring is in the air essentially, although I haven't heard the red-winged blackbird, but um I believe that uh the amount of calls that are out there have increased substantially. Whereas the past month before the last week, I would walk through the bush and it would be a strain at first light to hear birds singing, but now singing's on like uh the same kind of time frame, but the it's probably increased tenfold.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and the birds are using the change in light cycle. So um, so birds are very, especially temperate birds, are very regulated by how much light is available. And as we move past that 12 hours of dark, 12 hours of light, um, and then towards the winter solstice, what will happen is hormone levels will go down and they'll actually regress their gonads. So males, their testes will shrivel up, and females, their ovary will shrivel up, um, and they'll go into their winter mode. And then once the day starts getting longer again, that triggers in their brain the release of hormones that say, okay, testes, you should start growing. And as those testes start growing, males start producing more um hormones, androgens, male hormones. And that then triggers growth or changes in brain areas that say, you should start singing again. And so as we move into the time of year that would be associated with now forming pair bonds and starting to set up territories, males are going to start increasing that singing behavior. And it'll peak probably um for chickadees and tit mice, uh, probably around March or so for us.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So, but birds like the ruffled grouse, um, there's a bit of uh I recall that it may have advanced the information because they do a drumming where they beat their chest. They, you know, they'll find a drumming log, which is where they um I'm sure you're familiar with it, just so our listeners understand what a a grouse will do in the springtime is a male grouse, it will grab a log and then beat its chest, and if it didn't grab the log, it would fly straight up. But in the spring, my understanding was it was attract mates, or this is our area. But now they have drumming in the fall, and there wasn't a real explanation as to why they drummed in the fall. Do you have any idea about that, or have you looked at anything or heard anything about that?

Who Sings The Most And Why

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I haven't studied any of the sort of game birds. I've always been uh small birds, a little bit into owls and and frogs, but a lot of game birds will do some of this drumming behavior. Talk about a lot of them will have sacks on their chests that they can inflate and hit together. So we talked about other kinds of sounds that animals can make when they're they're not vocalizations. Um certainly in songbirds, you will sometimes hear sporadic song throughout the fall. That's usually juveniles practicing. Um and I don't know if the same is true in the ruffled grouse. That's a possibility. It could also be that if we're having increasingly warm springs, so if you have a cold, or sorry, if warm falls, if you have a cold snap and then it warms up again, that sometimes can trigger plants and animals to do things that they normally would do in the spring, in the fall. So that's a possibility as well. Um, those are all that's all speculative sort of guesses based on general biology. I don't know specifically what's happening with the ruffled grouse, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01

So, Megan, can you tell us, in your opinion, what's um a good way for a urban bird watcher to attract birds to feeders or the specific type of feeds for certain types of birds, like the niger seeds and things like that, that uh our listeners might be interested in, you know, when is a good time to put feeders out and when do you not put feeders out and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there's a lot of debate on feeding. I think so many people do it now that we're kind of in a in a phase where um an additional feeder is not really gonna hurt anything. My my preference always is if you want to attract birds to your um to your environment, planting native plants and leaving the seed heads through the fall and into the winter is really a great way. You'll see a lot of birds foraging on high-quality food that you're growing yourself. And it also provides habitat for insects to overwinter. So if you're interested in butterflies, or we have a lot of native bees that need to uh overwinter in in hollow plant stems, that's a great way to attract birds. It'll also make your feeders more attractive because birds will already have a habitat that they like. Um I like feeders that are easy to clean, um, and feeders that are placed near cover that's good for small birds, but not so much cover that'll provide a chance for um hawks or other animals to use your bird feeder as a bird feeder. So that can happen too, right? That hawks will sort of figure out where all the bird feeders are in the neighborhood and and go from place to place. And if they have the ability to say come around a corner, that makes it a lot easier for them to um to get birds at your feeder. A water source is also a great idea. There's been a lot of um seasonal drought recently, and so if you provide a source of water for birds, that will make your your habitat very attractive. I think my I've got a I live in a very small lot, it's kind of an urban lot, but um, I have a small water feature and I see birds at it absolutely constantly, maybe even more than at the feeders.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, really? So when you have your water, do you have a water heater or is it just flowing water?

SPEAKER_02

So in the winter time, if it gets really bad, um, I will put like a small, a small heater in it to keep it going. Uh a lot of times if the water is moving quickly enough and you're not don't have a ton of really, really cold days, just the movement of the water will will keep it um flowing. You can also always uh go out with a pot of hot water and and pour it through the surface level of the ice. Um so it depends on how cold the winter is. This year I've had to do some sort of supplemental because we've had a cold winter, but in the past, if if we have days where it's you know near freezing during the daytime, the movement of the water is usually enough to keep it to keep her from it.

SPEAKER_01

So bird baths in the wintertime, good thing or bad thing, or do they bath? Uh because I've seen birds, I know I was doing a load of wood, and then I had a break through some ice, and the birds were just going crazy in it, and I was quite surprised.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, a really shallow birdbath you'll probably have a hard time keeping unfrozen in the wintertime. So if you can have a deeper feature with a uh a stack of rocks in it or something that the birds are able to stand on so that they can get out if they have a problem, you'll be able to keep that open more often. But water is really hard to come by in the winter time as well. So water during the winter, water during dry spells in the summer, that can really keep um bird populations going.

SPEAKER_01

And snow, they don't feed on snow, obviously.

SPEAKER_02

That's a good question. You know, I actually don't know the answer to that. I would imagine not, but perhaps if if things were desperate. But um, I've I've had experiences like you where even when there's a ton of snow around, as soon as I make a water source available, they're there immediately. Um so it seems at least more accessible to them.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So how can people find out more information or find out more details or get in touch with you uh to find out? This is a chance to plug your uh Vessor.

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah, well, we have I have a lab website that you can find if you Google my name. Um, if you're interested in getting to know more about birds, I really recommend all the resources that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology makes. So the Merlin app is one, but they also have um all about birds, which is a great source to find more information about birds that you're interested in. And if you're interested in doing citizen science things, they have a great backyard bird count and then they have e-birds, so you can you can help them collect data about birds, which they can use in research projects. So um, so you can certainly get in contact with me if you're interested, but uh I think Cornell Lab Ornithology is a great place to go if you have questions about these things.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Well, thank you very much, uh, Dr. Megan Gall. We very much appreciate uh the information you've been able to provide for us. I found it fascinating and about the uh the the bird calls and the distress calls. So now I'm gonna be trying to record and trying to figure out exactly what a D note is uh for a bird call as compared to other notes. But um, and I don't know, I never thought about this. So if I take my electronic toner, if you know what I mean for my guitar, um, and I use that, will it be able to identify the level of note that the chickadees are doing from a recording?

Ruffed Grouse Drumming & Seasonality

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, if you're close enough, you can definitely figure out what the frequency is. And that Merlin app will show you something called a spectrogram, which is the frequency of the sound as a function of time. So you can also get that information from there so you could understand how frequency is related to what note we're perceiving as humans. Right.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, very good. Well, Megan, thank you very much for taking the time. We really appreciate it. I found it very interesting. And for all those that are listening out there, as always, you got any questions, don't be afraid to ask. You got any suggestions for show? Let us know. And it's just a little bit something different out there under the canopy. And we'll see you at the shows coming up. Thanks again, Megan.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04

But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people. Share their stories of our trials, tribulations, and inspirations. Learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.

SPEAKER_05

Meanwhile, we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass, and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.

SPEAKER_08

My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that might be more efficient than it was punchy.

SPEAKER_04

You so confidently you said, Hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drink? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.