Whistle While You...

At times a quest for knowledge can take you a bit off the beaten path. (Right Church, Wrong Pew)

Whistling Robins. That's where it all started. I wanted to find out who knew what about this most perplexing of subjects and discovered way more than I ever wished for. As you know, if you are reading this, my absolute favorite bird is the American Robin; Turdus Migratorius. You probably even know why too, but that's not the focus of my ramblings today. What I wanted to know is why do some Robins whistle? (That was my first mistake)

If you know me, I like to dig too. No, not in the soft fertile soil, or the hard-packed clay (however that too is true) but I mean "dig" in the sense that I turn over things until I find the answer I am looking for. I also love the Internet as a tool for helping me do this. It is emotionless, patient, thorough, and does not ask me to repeat myself for mumbling. For all of its good points, it has one not-so-good one that must be dealt with and considered; it is very literal.

My case in point today will be my quest for knowledge related to my whistling Robin question. Did you know that if you Google the phrase "Robin Whistle" you'll discover a very sexy woman's sandal design from the people at FarylRobin named the "Whistle?" (Warning if you click on the FarylRobin site HERE, the site loads slower than the proverbial Second Coming) If your interest has been sufficiently piqued regarding the Whistle sandal and what it looks like, click HERE instead. (Disclaimer: Birdstud is not a salesman for FarylRobin, nor is any of his family affiliated with the company in any way )

So Googling onward, my next stop was a happy little (not) 12-line poem written in 1920 by Sara Teasdale entitled, "There Will Come Soft Rains."

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

After reading that uplifting bit of prose, I felt like I needed to apologize to someone for some reason...hmmm, I wonder what that was about. Anyway, my next stop along the road less traveled was a grainy, blurry YouTube site that featured a kid named "Robin" who learned to "whistle" in an extremely pathetic way. Of course I watched it (and all the subsequent attempts) with the same fascination that one has while watching a slow-moving train wreck...I couldn't NOT watch it, you know? Perhaps I somehow "wished" that whistle-challenged Robin would STOP whistling long enough to provide me with the answer to my question? Nope...so I moved on with a heavy heart to one of the MANY references to a curious bit of "whistling" associated with a short-lived forgetful BBC series dealing with the life and times of "Robin" Hood. Some "artist" with a copy of Audacity and Windows Movie Maker had apparently sifted through hours of gritty, entertaining footage from the ill-fated show, pairing it with the "whistling" theme from the Disney animated film of the same name. (HERE) Note: This is NOT entertaining in the slightest, but the whistling is kind of amusing for 20-30 seconds.

Can you believe that someone out there actually had the cajones to criticize Mary Poppins and it's "factual faux pas" in purposefully casting an "American Robin" singing IE: "whistling" from Mary's finger and windowsill, and not the far more believable "British Robin?" (Was this a "union" thing, or was the American Robin, too pricey?) Perhaps that same critical individual failed to notice the utter fantasy involved with a woman who can fly with a standard bumbershoot? (and don't even THINK of Googling "bumbershoot" or you'll get the Seattle Music and Arts festival)

So far you must think me mad or (at least) horribly off track. Not so dear reader, for I had a breakthrough during my next series of word reordering; what was a "whistle" to me, was in fact a "seet" to the most amazing bird audiologist on the planet; Donald Kroodsma! What I was missing from my frantic Googling attempts was this important distinction, and when you are as accomplished and respected as Mr. Kroodsma is, you can call it like YOU hear it. In his book, "The Singing Life of Birds" he gets around to addressing the subject of my quest. I say "gets around" because this book, while technically unmatched, is just not a summer light reading escape. It is jam-packed with technical jargon, graphs and sonagrams that would take a scientist to appreciate and is quite tedious in that regard, however I do own the book and like the pictures. No really, the CD that's attached is well worth having, so if you think you'd like to take a shot at wading through the pages and pages of techno-jumble, then by all means pick it up (for the CD anyway). Me, I'm a kinesthetic learner anyway (and make no apologies for that) so it stands to reason that I just want the Cliffs Notes version and to be shown the door so I can go out and play...but I digress. From Donald Kroodsma to several old-time .PDFs interspersed around the "seet-ing robin" world, I finally found my answer! Robins can sound a warning (aerial alarm) when a predator (namely another meat-eating bird) raptor is in the neighborhood. That makes perfect sense to me now. The time I have heard their high pitched (often subtle) "seet" calls in my own city neighborhood were when there actually might have been a Cooper's Hawk in the vicinity. There are PLENTY of those frightening predators in the area and I can imagine that the robins saw them first, sounding out their warning to all who had the good sense to heed it. It must be noted that many birds sound alerts for various reasons, lurking hawks and eagles among them, however the robin's whistling "seet" call is quite unique (at least to my ear).

Certain alarm calls can even relate information as precise as the predator type and risk level. How individuals respond to these calls may depend on both the intensity of the call as well as the age of the responder. Scientists have investigated the aerial alarm call of the American robin and specifically examined how call rate (reflecting intensity) and age affect the anti-predator behaviors of responders. Both juveniles and adults significantly altered their behavior upon hearing recorded playbacks of "seet" calls; they foraged less and increased vigilance and other anti-predator behaviors. Adult robins were also able to distinguish between low intensity and high intensity calls; skygazing, an important behaviour that allows robins to scan for raptors, increased with call rate. Juveniles, on the other hand, skygazed less and there was a trend for juveniles to spend more time alert than adults suggesting that some learning may be involved. When a robin hears an alarm "seet" call, they most often repeat the call and stop moving so as to "hide."

Yes, the robin's whistling "seets" are truly an important evolutionary development in this fascinating species, and one that provides an important service for fellow avians. For humans, it is another in a long list of natural wonders that causes us to ponder, investigate, record and speculate...and nowadays, finally Googling for the "truest" answer to our questions. Now I know for sure and so do you. Kinda' gives you that clean as a whistle feeling don't it?

Seet choo later dear reader! - Birdstud