Thought for the Day - May 16

Subject: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:14 AM

From: Interview with Dr. Luis Baptista, ornithologist, New York Times, Tuesday, May 16:

Q: Why do birds sing?

They sing, for one thing, because the bachelor male wants to attract a wife. He also wants to show other males that he is pretty studly, that this is his territorhy and no one is going to cross the boundaries. A third reason is that the song induces the female bird's brain to send hormones: it makes her ovaries grow.

Q: What are the parallels between human music and bird music?
A: Some birds have tonal qualities like real instruments. The strawberry finch has beautiful single notes that come down the scale and sound like a flute. The diamond firetail from Australia sounds like a woodwind. The black palm cockatoo actually shapes a piece of a stick that it uses like a drunstick. It holds it with one foot and bangs it against a hollow log. Woodpecker seek out a nice log that makes the correct sound. Different birds use different pitches. One scholar discovered that the hermit thrush sings in the pentatonic scale used in Far Eastern Music; the canyon wren sings in the chromatic scale.

Birds can sing in canonical or sonata style. Very often they have variations on a theme, and eventually they come back to the original theme. They probably do it for the same reason human beings compose sonatas. Both humans and birds get bored with monotony. And to counter monotony you always have to do something new to keep the brain aroused.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:17 AM

Aye, Peter to counter monotony, and to cheer up the saddest members of the crew; its called depression nowadays though, we used to call it homesickness. Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:21 AM

The scientist in me wants to answer the thought that "They probably do it for the same reason human beings compose sonatas. Both humans and birds get bored with monotony. And to counter monotony you always have to do something new to keep the brain aroused."

Remember, we're talking about bird brains here. Chances are it's simply Mother Nature providing the variety (aka diversity) that gives evolution a moving target.
But I wonder, if the purpose of the serenade isn't to promote ovulation in the lady on the balcony?

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Biskit
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:29 AM

I believe that some things are simply not meant to be taken apart peice by peice an analized Could it be that the birds sing simply because they enjoy it, and that other birds enjoy it as well?-Biskit-

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Peg
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:32 AM

I am far from being a "bird fancier" but birds do fascinate me all the same...I do not know what I would do if I did not hear bird song upon awakening most days in the warmer months...and I have become adamant about keeping the bird feeders filled (taking a break every few weeks so they do not get dependent on me) so the birds of the neighborhood will keep coming around and delighting with their colors and songs and behaviors...just lately have been really enjoying the cardinals...the female even dares to venture out on her own now! She used to only accompany her red partner and even then she'd hide away in the branches while he ate seed...

thanks Peter T for these facinating remarks on bird song from an expert; I have not even heard of most of these species, they sound amazing...

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:33 AM

Biskit, there is more in the article on that subject:

Q: Do you think, as has sometimes been suggested, that birds sing for the pure pleasure of it?

A: here is a possibility. Konrad Lorenz had a jackdaw, and he said that when the bird had had a nice meal and was relaxed and had no stress it would sit on a tree and sing. It would use all the calls in its vocabulary and he would do these movements like a Shakespearean actor doing a soliloquy. Lorenz suggested it was a form of play.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:33 AM

I know, I know, sometimes I can't help myself. Let's get back to poetry and out of science, I agree.

Calico pie, the little birds fly, down to the calico tree. Their wings were blue, and they sang "Tilly Loo!" till away they flew, but they never came back to me. They never came back, they never came back, they never came back to me.
From Edward Lear. There are more verses but this was the most appropriate.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:39 AM

Is there a song version of this? I seem to recall a song fragment with that refrain -- but they never came back to me, never came back to me, never came back to me -- or is that from something else??

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Biskit
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:46 AM

Peter T., Though I'm not sure what a jackdaw is, (I assume it's some sort of winged creature) A good meal has in the past caused me to react the same.....though at my age it's more better to sit under the tree than in it. Peace, -Biskit-

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Biskit
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:53 AM

Guest Mrr, Thanks for the bit of song -Biskit-

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:04 PM

We have a wonderful cockatiel that reads Mudcat with me and craps on the keyboard. Does this count at all?

I see we've gone back to thoughts which is OK, but I really enjoyed the thught we had.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:10 PM

Biskit, it's a poem by Edward Lear, in his Book of Nonsense. No idea if anyone has put it to music.
Peter T, I have a vague memory of such a song too - got any other lyric fragments? Maybe you'll jog my memory, it'll be the only exercise I get today...

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Mbo
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:13 PM

God made Him birds in a pleasant humour;
Tired of planets and suns was He
He said: 'I will add a glory to Summer,
Gifts for my creatures banished from Me!'

He has a thought and it set him smiling
Of the shape of a bird and its glancing head,
Its dainty air and grace beguiling;
'I will make feathers,' the Lord God said.

He made the robin; he made the swallow;
His deft hands moulding the shape to His mood,
The thrush and the lark and the finch to follow,
And laughed to see that His work was good.

He Who has given men gift of laughter--
Made in his image; He fashioned fit
The blink of an owl and the stork thereafter,
The little wren and the long-tailed tit.

He spent in the making His wit and fancies;
The wing-feathers He fashioned them strong;
Deft and dear as daisies and pansies,
He crowned His work with the gift of song.

'Dearlings', He said, 'make songs for My praises!'
He tossed them loose to the sun and the wind,
Airily sweet as pansies and daisies;
He taught them to build a nest to their mind.

The dear Lord God of His glories weary--
Christ our Lord had the heart of a boy--
Made Him birds in a moment merry,
Bade them soar and sing for His joy.

--Katherine Tynan

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:21 PM

Thanks Mbo. Fine poem.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:36 PM

So don't female birds sing? I mean, I don't know, I'm asking. Because if they do Dr Luis Baptista's reasons don't deal with that.

But even with males, words like "why" don't really feel right. These might well bethe advantages to a species of having male birds sing and so forth, and I suppose you canb call that "why". But I imagine a bird sitting up on a tree. He's going to start singing because that's what a bird sitting on a tree does. "A bird's got to do what a bird's got to do." It feels good singing, and there's no reason not to. And when you start singing, some bird in a tree over there is going to sing out too, and you can sing just as good as him, so you do.

I've got a cat likes to sing when she's happy. Purring isn't good enough sometimes, she starts chirruping.

There's a poem about that, by Stevie Smith.

The Singing Cat.

It was a little captive cat
Upon a crowded train.
His mistress takes him from his box
To ease his fretful pain.

She hiolds him tight upopn her knee
The graceful animal
And all the people look at him
He is so beautiful.

But oh he pricks and oh he prods
And turns upon her knee
Then lifteth up his innocent voice
In plaintive melody.

He lifteth up his innocent voice
He lifteth up, he singeth
And to each human countenance
A smile of grace he bringeth.

He lifteth up his innocent paw
Upon her breast he clingeth
And everybody cries, "Behold
The cat, the cat that singeth."

He lifteth up his innocent voice
He lifteth up, he singeth,
And all the people warm themselves
In the love his beauty bringeth.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:53 PM

Strawberry Finches Forever

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 May 00 - 01:35 PM

For some North American Spring Love Songs just click for the birds.

Lovely postings, everyone...thanks,

katwhohasspringfever

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 May 00 - 01:41 PM

I think I may have posted this quotation recently in another thread. But here it is anyway:

"Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best." -Henry Van Dyke

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Biskit
Date: 16 May 00 - 04:42 PM

Thank you Mbo,Thank you McGrath of Harlow, Thank you Katwitthspringthing,Thank you Peter T. for starting this thread. and though poem it may have been when you wrote those words this mornin'when they got to Arizona they had a melody wit'`em. Peace,through understanding.,-Biskit-

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Penny S.
Date: 16 May 00 - 04:55 PM

Saw a review in New Scientist - the point of the argument being that we (that is humans - distinctions will be made later) sing for the same reason birds do. Here I am, look at me, I'm the best, no-one else will do. This place is mine, this bird is mine, keep out of my way, or it's you I will do. And the reason I can't do that as well as Shambles or McGrath is the same one that makes it unnecessary for me to use a pair of plastic bags full of jello under my T-shirt. Most creativeness - composing, singing, learning the guitar, etc. it pointed out, occurs between 18 and 28 or thereabouts. And, unless women knew enough to recognise a good tune when they heard one, it would all be wasted, so we get the gift as well. Our brains, and all our creative gifts are our peacocks tails, and all of us get to have them.

Penny

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 00 - 05:01 PM

Surely only a very specific kind of creativity is done between 18 and 28. Not to be picky. Yeats didn't really get going until he was over thirty, and we have had at least one thread of long lists of older creativity.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 16
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 17 May 00 - 12:47 AM

Reminds of a theory I heard from a lecture on traditional music history - that early flute music might well have been imitations of bird sounds. Your thought for the day is very informative, and gets one thinking about the relationships between species and music. Species that can make different sounds really are creatures of melody and variation. Okay, I'm sold on checking "thought for the day" every day.