The Pacific Wren’s Song, Slowed Down

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Listen carefully to the song of the Pacific Wren.

What we hear as a blur of sound, the Pacific Wren hears as a precise sequence. Because the birds can hear so acutely, the fine structure of song allows them to convey a lot of information in a tightly packaged sound.

Naturalist Rosemary Jellis writes, "That's probably why even the most extensive bird songs seem so brief to us. The bird, with its speeded-up time sense, must feel as if it had sung the equivalent of an operatic aria."

Let's listen again, but this time with the song slowed down to one-quarter speed.

Pacific Wrens may hear the song of other Pacific Wrens this way, enabling them to imitate each other. The same would be true for Winter Wrens of the eastern states and Eurasian Wrens. Whatever the species, they remind us that creatures we share the world with read and respond to nature in ways we sometimes cannot see or hear.

The bird calls you hear on BirdNote come from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. To hear this show again, visit our website, BirdNote.org.

Song of the Pacific Wren provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by G.A. Keller.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org     October 2014     Narrator: Mary McCann