![]() ![]() Using a combination of English syllables and slashes and dashes to indicate on paper how she heard songs, she kept track of the repertoire of individual males (a technique that readers can try with a backyard song sparrow). She was among the earliest researchers to use colored leg bands for marking a population of wild birds, and her song sparrow work, eventually published in two volumes totaling nearly 600 pages, was by far the most detailed done on wild bird behavior in the early 20th century. Nice, a leader in the emerging science of ethology (the study of animal behavior), worked with many species of birds, including several species of warblers that she studied during visits to her parents’ home in Pelham. When I hear a song sparrow, especially here in western Massachusetts, I often think of Amherst native Margaret Morse Nice (1883-1974) who, in the 1920s and ’30s, did pioneering research on this species in Columbus, Ohio, where she was living. A song sparrow typically has about a half-dozen to a dozen different songs that he sings with “eventual variety,” singing one song repeatedly for about 10 renditions before switching to a repeated series of another song. Rather, the change is between two of the songs in the individual’s repertoire. ![]() Listen closely to a song sparrow, and you may hear him switch from “Hip, hip, hooray,” to “Madge, Madge, Madge, put on the tea kettle, -ettle, -ettle.” The change is not simply a difference in traditional transliterations, the ways in which two people attempt to represent the same sound of a non-human species. Their song can usually be recognized by two or three clear, ringing introductory notes followed by a relatively long series of more complex notes and trills. They live in brushy habitats, such as often occur on the edges of fields, old orchards, backyards, etc. Song sparrows, distinguished by streaks coalescing into a central dark spot on the breast, are among the most widespread species of sparrows on this continent. Male song sparrows, those that spent the winter here and those recently returned north from warmer regions, are now singing to proclaim their presence, establishing their territories and attracting females. This, according to one classic transliteration of the song sparrow’s song, is a characteristic sound of a North American spring, a sound that actually starts in winter and continues through the summer. “Hip, hip, hooray, boys, spring is here.” Sign Of Spring: Hip, Hip, Hooray for the Song Sparrowīy David Spector Gazette Contributing Writer Internship/Volunteer: Children’s Programming.Our Commitment to DWS, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. ![]()
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