![]() ![]() The contrasting bands of white glow in the early morning light. I stop to admire the beauty of the Quartz veins running through the dark Sandstone outcropping. Near a steam vent a lovely patch of yellow Sneeze Weed stands alone in the dried straw color grass. The heat and drought conditions are sucking the life out of even the mightiest of Trees. On the Carriage Road I stand before a Tree that has dropped its Leaves in a display reminiscent of Autumn. Lovely pink Crepe Myrtle blooms on the ends of cropped branches. A Juvenile Cardinal sitting in a bush glances over its wing showing me the insect in its beak. On the Tufa Terrace Trail near the Hot Water Cascade the Trees are a rich green and Wildflowers are blooming. ![]() Where there is water life is lush within Hot Springs National Park. HSNP Tufa Terrace Trail Juvenile Male Cardinal TransitionĪ morning song of Love resonates throughout the Forest reaching out to open Hearts. HSNP Hot Springs Mountain Trail Summer Red Leaf HSNP Hot Springs Mountain Trail Summer Leaves HSNP Hot Springs Mountain Trail North Mountain View HSNP Honeysuckle Trail Hikers Hut (Wedding Chapel) View HSNP Honeysuckle Trail Hikers Hut (Wedding Chapel) HSNP Fountain St Lawn Female Squirrel (Bob) HSNP Fountain St Lawn Dead Bush from Drought HSNP Dead Chief Trail Juvenile Carolina Wren HSNP Carriage Road Juvenile Mourning Dove HSNP Arlington Lawn Silver Spotted Skipper Butterfly Paul Audubon Society and writes about nature for local, regional and national newspapers and magazines.Hot Springs, Arkansas – Medical Arts Building Paul, Minnesota resident Val Cunningham, leads bird hikes for the St. Since song is the key to success in both these fields, it’s no wonder that young birds spend so much time getting it right. Even if they don’t sing much or at all on their winter grounds, they’ll be ready to burst forth in recognizable song when they return next spring.Īttracting a mate and holding a territory are the two most important things a songbird does in its life. His ability to croon his species’s “This is mine, keep away!” song will help him hold a territory and attract a mate.īy the time they migrate out of the state in the fall, youngsters will have their songs stored accurately in their memories. Summer’s endless practicing pays off the next spring, when a young bird sits on his territory for the first time. These youngsters vocal learning sessions are a bit easier on the ear, not so much sung as whistled. If you listen, late in the summer, you can hear young cardinal and oriole males engaging in song practice. These become louder as the young birds become more proficient. At first they’re almost inaudible as they “whisper” their practice sounds. Young birds start out babbling just as human babies do, soon after they leave the nest. ![]() ![]() Young males first learn to sing like their fathers, then, when setting up their own territories, they add on the “local dialect,” so they sound like their neighbors. And just like the kid down the block who’s learning to play the violin, listening to this can be painful. Other young birds, such as bluebirds, cardinals and chickadees, run through their practice endlessly, until they can duplicate their father’s song perfectly. Then the young robin, unlike nearly all other songbirds, does something extraordinary: he creates a song that’s uniquely his own, combining robin sounds in an individual way. They keep it up until there’s a good match. After leaving the nest, they practice all day long, comparing the sounds coming out of their beaks to their mental template of how a robin should sound. Take the robins: youngsters hatch with an idea of their species’s repertoire, based on hearing their father sing. Because it’s not hard-wired into their brain, it must be learned. They require a lot of practice, because their song is not instinctual. But the birds we hear most frequently in mid-summer are their sons, hatched just weeks ago and now in a hurry to learn to sound like an adult. Those springtime soloists were adult males, experts at vocalizing their species’s sounds. Why the change? Do the males only make sweet music while they’re setting up housekeeping with a female, then afterwards don’t put much heart into it? Turns out that the current singers are different birds than the ones that warbled during April and May. The towhees are singing out only a portion of their “drink your TEA” song - more like “drink your” - and chickadee sounds are clipped and nasal. That easily recognized, smooth rendition of “cheerily, cheer-up, cheerio” has been replaced by something that sounds a bit more like a series of abruptly snapped off shrieks.īluebirds, too, sound different, more hesitant and a bit raspy. Heading into summer there’s a change in the mellifluous robin song of early spring. Contributing Writer Time spent practicing pays off next year, when the best singers get the best territories and mates. ![]()
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