Scienceline

These audio files feature a male swamp sparrow’s trill, which consists of the same syllable rapidly repeated over and over again. The first file is the trill at normal speed, and the second file is the trill slowed down 5x. Each syllable in the trill contains the same sequence of three notes: a short initial note that drops rapidly in pitch, a flat middle note and a long final note with a slower fall in pitch. In this study, the researchers specifically looked at the initial and final notes, swapping out short notes for long notes in the initial position and long notes for short notes in the final position to test whether birds discriminated between notes differently depending on context. [Recordings from Robert Lachlan] Read more here: http://scienceline.org/2015/01/sparrow-songs-tune-into-context/