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Robins, Tanagers and Grosbeaks, Oh My! · Birding by Ear with the Master Birders Academy

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome back to Birding by Ear with the Master Birders Academy.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kayla Fisk.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: In Birding by Ear, there are many instances where a bird's sound is very similar to another, whether that be because of pattern, rhythm, tone quality, or pitch.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: One of the most famous confusing groups in the Northeast consists of birds that have the same pattern but show different tone quality and speed.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: This group consists of the American Robin, Scarlet Tanninger, and Rose Breasted Grossbeak.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Each of these species can be found in the same locations, with the American robins occupying most of North America, and the scarlet tanninger and rose-breasted gross beak in the eastern half, with the gross beak spreading a bit further southwesterly than the tanger.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're anywhere in the eastern half, you could easily encounter all three on the same trip.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So range doesn't really help narrow down which of these you may be hearing.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: For habitat, all three can be found in various forests or forest edges.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So habitat doesn't help you either.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: To make matters worse, many times when you're in the forest, all three tend to be high up in the canopy, hidden from view, making visual identification tricky.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Surprisingly so, when you consider how bright red a male scarlet tanager is.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So IDing this group by sound is often your best bet.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Before we get started and look into how to tell the song of these three apart, I want to break down why each of these bird songs sound so similar.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: All three sing what's called a carold song, a loose string of short musical phrases, each one slightly different, strung together with pauses in between.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Compare that to something like a chipping sparrow's dry trill, or a black-throated green warbler's multiphrase buzzy song.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: American Robin, Scarlet Tanger, and Rosebreased Grossbeak all have a bit of a different quality to the same pattern, which makes them sound so similar.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: This similarity is interesting, especially when you consider that one of these species are not closely related to the other two.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: The American Robin is a thrush, belonging to the family Tertidae.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: The scarlet tanger and rose-breasted gross beak are both in the Cardinalidae family, which contains cardinals, gross beaks, and their allies.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: So with that in mind, let's go over the first species of this trio.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start with the species you are most familiar with, the American Robin, a species you already know the best.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because of that, we'll use the robin as our base, the one we will compare the other species to as we get more familiar with each of their three songs.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: The classic mnemonic for this species is cheerly, cheer up, cheerly, cheerup.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: The song is clear, liquid, and unhurried.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Each phrase rises and falls smoothly, like the bird is taking its time, almost lazy about it, in a very conversational like tone.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's no roughness in the tone at all.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you recorded it and looked at the spectrogram, you'd see clean, smooth curved lines.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Robins also sing for a long time without stopping.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: They'll go on for minutes, especially at dawn.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll sing pretty much all day once they're on territory.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: One more thing that helps is robins are loud and they're everywhere.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you're hearing the song from a lawn, shrubby edge, low in a tree, or really any habitat, including your own backyard, it's most likely a robin.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: The most important thing to note really is the tone.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's listen one more time, listening to the up and down style of the phrases, how clear the whistle sounds, and the length of the pauses between.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Structurally, it's the same as the robin.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Short phrases, pauses between them, rising and falling, but listen to the sound quality.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Where the robin is smooth and liquid, the tanger is raspy and burry.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Almost every note has a little burr or scratchy sound woven into it.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: It also tends to sing in shorter bursts than the robin wood, with the phrases coming across as slightly more choppy and less fluid.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Habitat can be also a little bit of a clue.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Scarlet tangers are birds of mature forest canopies, big deciduous woods, often up high where you can't see them at all.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you're standing under tall oaks and you hear a weird sounding robin, and the habitat is a deep forest interior rather than an edge or lawn, that can be used as a hint of what bird you're hearing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's also one more thing to have your ear out for as well.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Their call note.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: The call note of the Sprout Tanger is a distinctive, dry, two-parted chick burr.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: That call is unmistakable once you've got it down, and it's often given between song phrases, or when the bird is just sitting.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you hear that burry chick burr coming from the same spot you heard the song, that confirms if you have indeed found a scarlet tanger.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: The last in the trio we're going to go over is the rose-breasted gross beak.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: If we place the American Robin song in the middle of a chart and the scarlet tanger on one end, the rose-breasted gross beak would go on the opposite side of the scarlet tanger because of the song's sound quality.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: If a scarlet tanger is a robin with a sore throat, the rose-breasted gross beak is the opposite.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a robin who took singing lessons.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: But now, everything is smoother, sweeter, and more fluid than the robin.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Some birders describe it as a robin's song run through a finer filter, more polished, with the phrases connecting more continuously instead of the robin's slightly more deliberate, spaced out delivery.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Just like the Scarlet Tanger, if you hear its call note, it's a surefire way to distinguish it from the robin or tanger.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Rose breasted gross beaks give a sharp, distinctive stink.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: People often describe it as sounding exactly like a a shoe squeaking on a gem floor.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Both the gross beak and tanager have one of the easiest call notes to master because of how distinctive they are.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: This squeaky sneaker chink is so distinctive that once you've heard it and compare it side by side with the tanager's dry chick burr, you'll never mix the two calls up again, even if the song still gives you a bit of a hesitation.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Habitat-wise, gross beaks like forest edges and second growth more than the tanager's deep canopy preference.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So woodland edges, shrubby areas near woods, and younger forests are all good clues to pay attention to.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: But again, keep in mind, all three still are found in the same habitats.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: They just have a slight preference for specific forest niches.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can still find a robin or a gross beak deep in the forest interior, or a tanger out in the forest edge.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's play all three songs back to back so you can hear the differences again.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: First, the American Robin.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: This time I want you to guess which each species is.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: The American Robin Cheerly, cheer up, chirley.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Smooth, clear, liquid.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sings for long stretches all day.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Common in open and edge habitats, lawns and low trees.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Scarlet Tanger, a robin with a sore throat.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Same phrasing pattern, but hoarse or burry.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Shorter, more halting bursts, deep mature forest canopy.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Culno is a dry chick bur.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Rose breasted gross beak, a robin who took singing lessons.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Smoother and more fluid like than the robin.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Phrases flow together more.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Forest edges and second growth habitat.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Culno a sharp metallic chink.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like a squeaky shoe.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, sound quality is your best clue.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Rougher than a robin, tanninger.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sweeter than the robin?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Gross beak.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're ever unsure of the song, wait for a call note.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: The tanninger's chipper and the gross beak's squeaky shoes.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's it for this episode of Birding by Ear with the Master Birders Academy, your virtual mentor in becoming a better birder.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, happy birding!