WILD ECHOES

JAY (Garrulus glandarius)

Geai des Chênes

The generic name of the Jay is "garrulus", I'm not sure who decided this - but for me it is very appropriate as I always think of Jays as being the "lager louts" of the birds in our region. Although they can be extremely silent and secretive I find that more often they tumble noisily through the tree tops in small loose flocks, giving raucous cries, shaking everyone up and being generally objectionable to all and sundry !  This bad behaviour seems to be emphasised by their brilliant colouration and scruffy crest which almost seems to be an aggressive statement to the world that they are going to behave badly and don't care what anyone thinks !

OK this may be a bit over the top but you understand the general impression they make on me.

The most conspicuous noise they make is a harsh rasping call which is often repeated by those nearby:

and here is another example where a group of Jays shook up a flock of Mistle Thrushes who started alarming:

But this rather discordant sound is not the only trick in the Jay's repertoire, I find they can make a whole host of the most strange noises, here is one which sounded somewhat distressed, when I finally spotted it there seemed to be nothing wrong, but it did attract another Jay to come and look at it:

I have read that they can mimic the braying of a donkey, this one was close to that but sounded more like a cheap bicycle horn:

I spent a half hour chasing down this one which I was convinced was a woodpecker making a noise I had not heard before, until I finally found it and then the usual squawk identified the culprit:

They also frequently make a sound very much like the call of a Buzzard - I only seem to have a single call on file so in this piece I have edited it so that it repeats  the same call 4 times to give you the idea:

For a comparison of this call with a real Buzzard see the sonogram analysis on that page.

But to make up for the injustices I may have done to this bird I have to close by saying that I have heard what seem to be pairs communicating in a very calm, quiet, subtle almost tender fashion. In this example, although the bird could not help but throw in a few squawks, you can also hear several trills, chuckles and churrs which are very quiet and clearly only intended for the ears of the partner nearby:

SPOTTED NUTCRACKER (Nucifraga caryocatactes)

Cassenoix moucheté

Now here is an interesting bird, not only does it have a fascinating and slightly mysterious lifestyle, but it brings to the fore the whole issue of what does "song" actually mean - especially in the Crow family, more noted for their coarse noises than their delicate ones.

But before I describe the sounds this fascinating bird makes I must first tell you a little about its lifestyle. In Switzerland it is found above about 1,000m throughout the alps, it also occurs in the Jura but is less common there. We are on the western edge of its range as it occurs across Russia to the Pacific coast and also in the Himalayas.

Although it will eat a wide variety of food It is highly dependent (especially in winter) upon large nutritious seeds and in our region takes hazelnuts, chestnuts and especially the seeds of the Arolla Pine (Pinus cembra). The relationship with the latter is interesting as the tree seems to be completely dependent upon the Nutcracker to disperse its seeds which are heavy (8-12 mm) and without wings and so they are not dispersed by the wind. The Arolla Pine cones begin to ripen in July and throughout August and September the Nutcracker is very active as it collects the cones, often taking them to a special rock or tree stump which it uses as an "anvil" where it holds the cone with one foot and hammers it open with its large beak. The bird has a large throat sack under the tongue where it collects the seeds and when the sack is full it will then fly off to its territory and prepare a storage cache which may be in the ground, or under moss or lichen on a rock or fallen tree.

It is completely dependent upon these food caches throughout the winter. Imagine, it can collect and store enough food to last for months, and not only that it also needs to be able to find the stores under the snow! Studies have shown that a single bird may collect about 100,000 seeds in hundreds of stores, flying up to 12km to a good food supply and returning with a full throat sack. It also starts breeding early in the spring before the snow melts when it also uses these stores. It must have incredibly detailed knowledge of it territory to be able to find them once the snow falls, it often places them near a landmark of some kind, but despite this between 10-20% of the stores are not found and some of those seeds then germinate and grow new trees and so the bird contributes to the spread of the Arolla Pine. Further east the Arolla Pine is replaced by the Siberian Pine (Pinus sibirica) and exactly the same symbiotic relationship with this bird exists there as well.

Jays also store nuts in this way and there is a lot about the Nutcracker that reminds me of the Jay even in the sounds that it makes.

But first let's start with the coarse stuff, like the rest of the family the Nutcrackers' most characteristic noise is a harsh rasping call that actually carries a long way through the forest (or maybe I should say over the forest as it is usually made from the top of a high conifer tree - better still if it is one overhanging a cliff):

That example is the usual spacing of this call - you sort of catch it, think to yourself "huh, what was that ?", listen some more and there it comes again; and there is only one bird that makes a rasping noise quite like that.

Here is one that was quite close to me, and you can really hear all the intricacies (yes there are intricacies in this noise), it was recorded in early May, the snow was still melting and there were many small rivulets flowing through the forest which you can hear and I think I was standing in one ! (you'll hear a lot of rivers in the background in this species):

Looking at the sonogram is interesting, the rasping effect is made by small pulses of sound that show up as vertical lines in each call. Each individual call is about 0.4 secs long and contains about 30 pulses of sound - another attestation to the nervous control of a bird's syrinx. Also although it is a broad-band sound with many harmonics the fundamental note starts at about 1.8 Khz, rises in an arc to a peak of about 2.8 Khz before descending towards the end to about 2.3 Khz. In the the sequence I show there is also a small drop in frequency and timing from the beginning to the end so the whole phrase seems to tail away:

Whilst that spacing is what you "usually" hear remember this is a wild animal so as soon as you set a rule it promptly breaks it, soooo you can also hear sometimes a continuous stream of rasping calls like this:

These calls are used for "advertising". What does that mean ?  Exactly what it says - it might be conveying "I am here and really beautiful come and get me", or it might be saying "this is my territory get out of here immediately !". Since both male and female have identical plumage they are not very helpful in decoding the language.

These rasping sounds are the noises you are most likely to hear from this bird, but not the only ones. As I said at the start - there is a lot about the Nutcracker that reminds me of a Jay - listen to the start of this and then see what it goes on to do:

Clearly it was a Swiss Nutcracker as it seems to have learned to yodel somewhere ! The point here is that whilst this one started out yelling coarsely like a Jay it later started to do something else - I think it was singing. Singing ?? Come on, that wasn't a song, a song has rhythm and pattern and a beat and is attractive. Yes to us humans, that's our definition, but to a bird, "song" is simply a noise that gets you what you want, usually used in the breeding season. What I mean is that "song" as such does not have to hold our anthropomorphic values, it can be a lot simpler - so long as it gets the needed result.

So, like many other members of the Crow family, Nutcrackers make a variety of subtle and gentle sounds that probably serve the same purpose as the much more aesthetically appealing (to humans) song of say the Nightingale. But like the rest of the family it seems to be a challenge, sometimes the sound can be really beautiful other times it comes out a mangled mess.

A lot of what we might call song in  Nutcracker sounds like a series of squeaks and whistles and yelping noises:

But those whistles can be very variable- some are a sort of whining noise like a beaten dog:

and others are much purer in tone and get dangerously close to being beautiful:

Here are those two whistle types on a sonogram, note how the second one is a much purer more focused frequency:

Now let's put some of this together and see what it sounds like:

Amazing isn't it ? This was a group interacting (maybe a family maybe not - who can tell ?), and I edited a chunk of boring stuff out of the middle as you can tell. But notice how every so often it is as though they can't help themselves and break out into a chorus of the rasping call, but then someone else introduces the whistles that almost have a pleading sound (in anthropomorphic terms that is !).......

Here is another application of those whistles by a pair that were flying around as they sang - again the occasional harsh noise - but you can just imagine boyfriend and girlfriend singing to each other and every so often feeling the need to yell out to competitors to stay away - its a struggle all the time in nature I tell you ! :

Finally here is one where I have no clue what was going on at all and I have only ever recorded it the once - two long churring calls like an overgrown grasshopper. I have read (in Cramp and Perrins ) that this may be an alarm call, but I had no context in which to judge that - it was simply another one of those sounds that came my way:

It is a very rapidly produced sound though - I counted them in the sonogram and it makes about 45 sounds each second (hit the pause button on the sonogram player and count them if you don't believe me) - a similar rate to the sound pulses we saw in the rasping call:

So what can we take away from all this ? In my opinion (1) that the Corvidae (Crows) in general are not as harsh and nasty as they are made out to be, they manage their relationships vocally in a very complex way (2) that "song" means different things to different species - its  the result that counts most not the methodology (3) that you really do have to pay attention and not take things at face value - look deeply and there are meanings in everything that goes on......

CARRION CROW (Corvus corone)

Corneille noire

The Carrion Crow is found throughout Switzerland - recorded close to 3,000m up in the mountains, but their population density drops off rapidly after about 1500m. In the south of Switzerland (in Ticino and the southern Grisons) the Hooded Crow occurs, once thought to be simply a race this is now recognised as a separate species. Records show that the Crow population has increased over the past 20 years or so, probably because it is so adaptable in its habits and can feed on a wide range of items from wild fruits and insects to carrion and agricultural waste, and adapts well to urban life.

Crows are social birds (a general characteristic of the family) although not as sociable as some of its relatives like the Rook and the Jackdaw. But they are frequently found in flocks (more so in winter), and very often in pairs, and there is always some kind of interaction going on between them. As could be expected of a bird that tends to hang out in crowds there is a lot of chatter and so they make a great variety of sounds, but the basic call of the Carrion Crow is simply a loud, harsh "caw" sometimes described "kraa" usually delivered in sets of 3-4 calls in succession:

It is a call with a fundamental frequency around 1.5Khz, but with harmonics above and below that, and it slides down in frequency to about 1.3Khz towards the end of each call, you can see this on the sonogram:

You can also see from this that each call is not an even note but has small stridulations in it which probably also contributes to the harsh nature of the sound.

This basic call can take on different variations, one which is heard commonly was originally called by birders the "car horn" call on account of its more honking nature (but this was called after the old rubber bulb type of horn, so this name is now past its best !). This call is made at a slightly higher frequency and is an even note, not dropping lower at the end:

In the spectrogram it seems a cleaner, "purer" sound:

These two calls seem to be exchanged quite freely within any set of interactions, but they undoubtedly must signify something, listen to this group going at it, in the early part the normal "caw" can be heard and at about 22s one individual gives 4 of the flat "horn " calls:

But if you were listening carefully you would have heard one other new noise in that sequence - a set of clicks at about 7s, here they are extracted:

And this is one of wonderful things about Crow vocalisations - they are capable of a whole range of subtle sounds, especially when close interaction within a pair or a family is taking place. I need to get more examples of these. The above clicks are a series of rapid sounds:

But here is one where the clicks almost take on a "purring" sound like a cat:

Cramp and Perrins et al describe a more aggressive anxiety call, but I have not come across this, here is an example of two birds in a woodland mobbing a Goshawk whose higher pitched calls can also be heard:

and if we look at this on the sonogram it seems to be pretty much the same as the basic call to me:

I have also heard gentle chuckling and mewing noises but have no recordings of these.

The basic call can carry for a long distance, and if there is a serious interaction in a flock you are certainly aware there are Crows in the neighbourhood ! Here is a flock in December:

Crows are also known to be very intelligent, they can count up to seven for example and can learn to use tools to solve problems and get at food, but just for fun here is a little clip showing how one group of Crows in Japan learned to use the traffic to break open nuts for them:

RAVEN (Corvus corax)

Grand corbeau

Ravens are interesting birds, they feature in folk tales and mythology from many different countries all over the world - it is honoured as the national bird of Bhutan and was revered as a god in the indigenous cultures of the Pacific northwest of America. This also demonstrates the wide distribution of this species - extending all round the world in the northern hemisphere.

Unfortunately the vast majority of the tales around Ravens regard them as birds of ill-omen, harbingers of gloom and generally bad news for anyone unlucky enough to encounter one. But I love 'em ! They are probably the heaviest of the birds known as "Passerines" (perching birds which include Blue Tits and Sparrows), weighing in at up to 1.5 kg or more, they mate for life and are usually seen in pairs and have a strong but agile flight abilities, especially in the mountains where they can use updrafts and wind currents very skillfully and sometimes acrobatically.

In Switzerland it is found in almost all habitats but is more common in the mountains from about 800m and upwards. It is at its best (in my opinion) in the crags and cliffs of the alps where its powerful wings can take it long distances very quickly and where it can course the face of cliffs gliding with wings outstretched catching the air currents that power it along. It seems indifferent to the raw terror of the terrain below, it is a big strong bird and each wing beat can carry it a long way - it can pass over your head at the top of one mountain and then disappear behind a neighbouring peak in the flash of an eye.

It is easily told from the smaller Carrion Crow by the size (remember it is bigger than a Buzzard), slower more deliberate wing beats, thicker heavier bill, and a long wedge-shaped tail.

The basic call is a deep strong "prruk - prruk"  which is given both in flight and when perched, but its deep tone and resonance inside its body cavities means it is unmistakable. Here is one perched on a forest edge:

You can hear now the distinctive rasping and rolling sound of the "prruk". Most of the energy is just below 1Khz but in a couple of calls there it was a bit higher:

The same call is also made in flight. They tend to be curious birds, I guess because they are a mixture of both scavenger and predator and are always on the look out for a meal, so I have frequently found that, especially in woodland areas, a Raven will "drop in" on me to take a look and then fly on, when this happens you are not only aware of the tone of the call but can hear the whistle from those powerful wings - if you are listening with headphones you can hear the wings most distinctly in this next piece as a bird flew close by to check me out, the clear whistle at 26 secs came from the wings and was caused when it stopped that steady powerful wing beat and made a steep glide as it turned away:

Here is another that also dropped in to see if I would share a sandwich, circled me and then flew off, but this one made faster higher pitched calls (you can also hear my feet crunch as I turned in a circle to follow it with the parabola !):

So now we know that it can alter the tone of its call when it wants to. I was one day recording a Cuckoo in the mountains when a pair flew high overhead, one of them making a high pitched squawk like a parrot while the partner replied with the "normal" deeper call:

The sonogram of this is quite interesting - you can see the Cuckoo calling away at 600Hz ("Cuc") and 500Hz ("koo"), the longer drawn out squawks of the higher pitched Raven at about 1450 Hz, and the lower shorter grunts of the reply at about 1000Hz, at first the the reply is only a short grunt, but at 18.2 secs in the video the reply comes back like the more regular "prruk prruk" sound:

Finally here is a call that is even more high pitched, more of a "gowk-gowk" type of sound - I must qualify this by saying this particular recording was made near an estuary in North Wales (the rest were from Swiss mountains) and you can hear several wader species in the background (a nice Curlew at the end !):