Birdsong: instruments of the orchestra

Piccolos to bassoons

In previous posts I gave some examples of how birds use rhythm in their songs:

and some different melodies:

Even though these posts are of no interest to anyone apart from me, I’ll plough on.

This time, examples of bird calls that remind me of instruments of the orchestra, especially the woodwind. All recordings are mine.

Most often birdsong is compared to the sound of the flute.

One of the few writers to recognize the range of voices that birds possess was Pliny the Elder’. On the nightingale: “the sound is given out with modulations, and now is drawn out into a long note with one continuous breath, now varied by managing the breath, now made staccato by checking it, or linked together by prolonging it, or carried on by holding it back; or it is suddenly lowered, and at times sinks into a mere murmur, loud, low, bass, treble, with trills, with long notes, modulated when this seems good—soprano, mezzo, baritone; and briefly all the devices in that tiny throat which human science has devised with all the elaborate mechanism of the flute.”

We don’t have any nightingales in Thailand but there is a fine range of avian voices. Some examples and the instruments they remind me of.

Piccolo: Mountain tailorbird

Flute: Orange headed thrush, Indian cuckoo, Red faced liocichla

Bass flute: Brown wood owl, Mountain imperial pigeon

Percussion: Large tailed nightjar, Rufous woodpecker

French horn: Greater coucal

Clarinet: Maroon oriole, Orange trogon

Oboe: Red-wattled lapwing

Alto sax: Grey treepie, Rufous treepie

Tenor sax: Great hornbill

Bassoon: Cinnamon (Yellow) bittern

Pliny was impressed with the range of sounds in one bird. One that’s comparable here (in range, if not musicality) in the Common Myna, that you find everywhere. Vocalizations range from maniacal shrieks to confidential whispers.