Blue Jay

Blue jays squall their way through busy days, calling out their own name with shouts of, “Jay, Jay, Jay, Jay!”

They are kind of full of themselves like that.

Blue jays make many other nuanced vocalizations that can be tricky to place if their calls are new to you. Good thing when blue jays are around, you’ll usually know it (unless they are in the process of being sneaky, quietly trying to steal eggs to eat from other bird’s nests or hiding their own nests from other predators).

Compared to most passerines (birds that perch), blue jays are on the larger end. With a prominent crest, bright blue feathers, and bold black and white markings, blue jays are easy to visually identify.

I’m sharing blue jays early in the guide because they make a good comparison bird when you’re learning upcoming species.

Blue jays are brighter, bluer, louder, and bigger than most songbirds.

Blue jays travel in noisy flocks, acting as if they are well-aware of their status as “the most” of everything. They’re like the cool guy trouble-makers, the stars of the high school hockey team or something—some slightly more alternative sport than football. They get great grades in school, but they do things that get them sent to detention on the regular. In fact, if blue jays were on the hockey team, they’d be much like my high school hockey team of yore after half the team got suspended for getting caught smoking pot. The jays would definitely get caught because when they’re not talking about themselves, they’re still yelling “jay,” only it’s for other reasons. They are a boisterous bunch.

With a big case of the munchies, groups are known to descend upon birdfeeders to throw seed-scattering parties. Sometimes at these parties, the comic of the crew will show off extra by throwing around a few vocal impressions. The blue jay’s impressions repertoire is somewhat limited with the best impression being that of the red-shouldered hawk. Sometimes, she’ll also let loose a whistle, as if impersonating another wearer of blue—an  officer of the law. The whistle is only an impression—meant to sound like a clownlike, mocking version of the real thing.

Top Left: Classic jay call.

Top Right: Jay’s best red-shouldered hawk impression.

Bottom Left: Jay’s clownish traffic cop whistle.

Anyhow, whenever a group of jays squalls its way through my neck of the woods, I feel lucky to share a bit of the day with them. They keep track of all the goings on around their neighborhood, so hanging with them for awhile means you become privy to their insider knowledge of their home turf. Blue jays are known to mob (pester, make a fuss about, chase, generally reveal then annoy) avian predators. If you hear an unusually large commotion from jays, investigate and you might be rewarded with an owl sighting. Following jays can also lead you to food sources used by other wildlife, smaller songbird’s nests (and maybe some morbidity—a jay’s gotta eat), or just a visual spectacle—especially in fall when their blue feathers match the sky and contrast with the golds of a turning sugar maple.

American Robin

Robins are the literal early bird that gets the worm. As the dawn chorus’s opening act, robins start to sing well before sunrise.

Like a good yard sale, the robin speaks to the suburban experience. On a summer day look out at any lawn, and you’re likely to see a robin. Watch telephone wires, treetops, clotheslines, anyplace with a foothold and a prominent view, and you’ll eventually catch sight of a robin. Because they are ubiquitous, robins are a good “early bird” for practicing identification as a beginning birder.

Robin songs are easily identified through temporal cues. They are among the first birds to sing each morning. Robin song dominates the earliest half-hour or so of the dawn chorus. When I worked as a songbird survey technician, it was my job to wake up before sunrise to get out when birds are most vocally active in the wee morning hours. I associate robin song with those moments in bed just after my alarm has sounded but before I’ve gotten the gumption to rise and make my way out to the field. It’s still pitch-black outside, but the robins are already at it, singing their lilting melodies. For me, their song conjures that feeling of resistance the body makes when its begging to press snooze but forced into action. The robins were their own sort of alarm clock, telling me I’d reached beyond the realm of snooze.

Above: The robin’s song consists of a flowing melody that sounds as if it’s pulling loopy-di-loops on itself. Many species sound similar to robins, but theirs is the only call to fray into nearly inaudible high notes.

Above: Cheaps appear as isolated spikes

Robins must love good deals, the way they’re always yelling, “Cheap, cheap, cheap.” Maybe they are excited about yardsale deals, but more likely they are feeling territorial. Robins often nest near human activity, and in doing so, they put themselves and their nests in our paths. When we cross those paths, robins often scold us with relentless, close-range cheaps. Since it’s so common, novice birders will do well to pay attention and learn to describe the call. Some useful descriptors might include: loud, sharp, and insistent. Think about how the call rates next to other things you hear around the yard, on your walk to work, in the parking lot, wherever. If you learn the topography of the robin’s call, you can later employ it as a baseline of comparison for other species.

I also associate robins with rain, with that feeling of stepping with bare feet onto a steaming sidewalk after a passing summer shower. Robins break into song after rain as if they are celebrating the return of the sun. It’s a jovial song with lots of ups and downs, most often sung in a chorus (individual robins chiming in across the land), so that the song of the robin adds its own color to the ornate tapestry of this Midwestern landscape.

Recently fledged robins appear a bit clownish with their speckled bellies and overlarge beaks. Through peak yard sale season, watch them hop their ways towards the day when they grow their big-kid feathers and fly away..

Robins also make a high pitched, sometimes barely audible alarm call that goes something like, “sssssp.” Alarm calls across species are often high-pitched, consisting of frequencies that are hard for predators (like people) to track. If you think you hear a robin’s alarm call, take a second to stand still and scan the ground and low branches for birds. It’s good practice for your ears to follow sounds to their source, and it’s good practice to take a cue to pause and re-attune yourself to your surroundings. If the day is going along as usual and everyone seems to be calmly going about their business before you hear a sudden flurry of “ssssssps,” take the chance to look for the source of the robin’s alarm. Tuning into alarm calls is a great way to catch rare glimpses of more elusive wildlife.

That’s what’s great about robins. They are so common, they offer us a thread that’s always within reach and sturdy enough to keep us connected to the natural world. Wherever we are, however busy or distracted, there’s a robin doing its robin thing, singing its robin song, reminding us that there’s a whole world out there ready and waiting for us to take notice.

Northern Cardinal

Cardinals are one of the first singers of the year. They belt out their crooner crossed with car alarm tunes starting around Valentine’s Day. How romantic. As one of the first species to break into song each spring they offer us an exciting marker for the end of winter, and they give beginning birders a great opportunity to learn the cardinal’s song when they are still working solo acts. In mid-Febuary, not a lot of other songs are out there to compete for our attention or confuse things.

Male cardinals do the majority of the singing, and those males are bright red. In the Midwest if there’s snow on the ground, cardinals are the only bright red bird you’re going to see. (In the summer, various tanagers can compete for the brightest of red birds, but they would be a rare and exciting spots, whereas cardinals, although always exciting, are rarely— well— rare.) As a common bird with a loud voice who solos for several weeks before other birds start competing for airplay, cardinals are a great place to start if you’re hoping to build a foundation around which to build your bird identification practice.

The cardinal song is a mix of extended yet seperated downward notes followed by a super slow trill that sounds like a car alarm. Jump to about 0:19 to get the full cardinal effect.

What do you think? Does the cardinal sound a little like comeback-era Elvis? The males boast the style of Elvis circa an off-night version of Viva Las Vegas. They sport the high pompador (called a crest in elite birding communities), their guady red attire outshines even a bejeweled jumpsuit.

Do you hear the crooner crossed with car alarm? Compared to other regional species, the cardinal’s song can be called melodic. It occupies a songbird middleground as neither complex nor simple. Like a car alarm, it’s loud and repetetive.

In another shout out to Cornell Labs, check out the Macaulay Library. In this treasure-trove of recordings, you can explore what feels like a limitless collection of audio files for species around the world. The recordings play along with a real-time visual readout of the audio. The visual lends a physical shape to the song’s construction giving cues for pitch, tempo, pauses, and patterns.

I find this to be the coolest resource. I love having access to this extra level of context. We’ve come a long way from when I was learning to identify birdsongs in large part by reading the song descriptions in my field guide. My Sibley Guide (duct-taped along the spine from overuse) writes out the cardinal song as soundling like “slurred whistles woit, woit, woit, chew chew chew chew chew.” The above text in the car alarm image is equally vague. It’s hard to describe sounds using words. Speaking of which, as a way to afford your practice even more context, it can be helpful to try to explain the song to someone else or use your field journal as a place to describe what you hear. Use whatever works to trigger your memory and help you assoiate this crimson crooning car alarm with the Northern Cardinal.

But wait… the ladies!

Female birds often get overlooked when birders are first beginning to practice identification. Birds are commonly sexually dimorphic, meaning males and females of a species differ in physical characteristics. Females are often drabber in coloration and not as vocally active as males. That means females demonstrate fewer quick and ready markers for identification.

Females in general are rad there’s no doubt. If I overlook females here, it’s because you must first learn the obvious before you have the capacity to recognize the subtle. In birds and many species, males trend towards the obvious.

Anyhow, female cardinals are subtly beautiful with sandy coloration augmented with orange highlights and a saturated orange bill. All cardinals like to visit backyard feeders, so feeding stations are a place where you’re likely to see cardinals in all their forms. Back to the lounge act— cardinals tend to linger at feeders late into the evening. Think of them like groupies lingering at the lounge long after the less audacious birds have flittered off to bed.