White-throated Sparrow
A light broke upon my brain. It was the carol of a bird.
– Lord Byron
May 9, 2008 – Early this morning I finally got a chance to see a merrily singing White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis). Perched about 12 feet up in the top of a young birch tree, it entertained me for a long time while I regretted not having my camera handy.
Photo released to the public domain by Ken Thomas
If Balsamea had an anthem, it might be the song of this prolific singer, with some percussive accompaniment of red squirrel chatter, and the laughter of woodpeckers. The White-throated Sparrow’s song sounds plaintive and happy at the same time, as if to say, “I’m alone, but I’m enjoying my solitude until you join me.”
I read that they live up to ten years. No doubt some of the white-throated sparrows I hear were native Balsameans long before I arrived. They seem unoffended by my presence.
The shrill whistling song consists of two long notes followed by three rapid triplets, sometimes only one long note, sometimes three, sometimes not all three trailing triplets; perhaps juveniles practicing. It goes something like this: “me, ME, me-me-me, me-me-me, me-me-me.” There is an audio recording at the USGS Infocenter, but it’s not a particularly good recording. (See below for links to more recordings.)
Tradition describes the song verbally as “Poor Sam, Peabody, Peabody, Peabody,” or “Oh, Canada, Canada, Canada.” I prefer to interpret it as, “Here we sing-for-thee, in-the-tree, happily!”
I don’t know where these singers were all my life, because I don’t recall hearing them prior to moving to the Adirondacks several years ago. Perhaps living here amidst so much boreal forest awakened my awareness of nature. I think so.
They spend winters in the southern states, come north in the spring and stay until autumn throughout the northern states and Canada. Hearing their song for the first time each year is a reassurance that winter is finally over.
They sing any time of the day and often at night. Recently one serenaded me all night long. On a silently windless night, long after all the other birds have finished their sunset choruses, when I hear this sparrow’s song, lilting through the trees in the dark, it feels like an auditory dessert, a surprise lullabye sung just for me.
A Google search on “white-throated sparrow” yields many hits but here are some recommendations:
I enjoyed reading nearby Southern Vermont Chris Petrak’s blog post titled, White-throated Sparrows Are Practicing Their Songs, where he says, amidst a thorough essay on the singer, “The White-throated Sparrow has one of the most recognizable songs of any sparrow, or any songbird for that matter. To my ear, the clear, whistled notes of the song sounds plaintive and mournful, a song of ruefulness and longing. I have to remind myself that it is a love song, a song to establish territory, warn off rivals, and attract a mate. There is nothing plaintive about the White-throat’s song to another White-throat. To one of his own kind on breeding territory, it is a declaration of territorial prerogative or an invitation to erotic adventure.”
One of the more authoritative treatises on this singer is at the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology. Their sound recording has three long notes before the triplets. I occasionally hear them sing that way, too.
Video clips are available at the Internet Bird Collection.
National Public Radio affiliate KPLU and Seattle Audubon offer an excellent recording as part of a radio essay written by Dennis Paulson and narrated by Frank Corrado at birdnote.org, in Sounds of the Boreal Forest Transcript-782, with a sound track of the boreal forest provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.
- The Balsamean
