Hello. Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Wayne Petersen and I'm the director of the
Important Bird Areas Program for the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Today, we're here at the
Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield. And, we're going to be talking about birding by
ear. Probably one of the most interesting song types is that exhibited by bird species that are mimics.
Some birds that are often kept as caged birds, like the Myna birds from Asia, are capable of
imitating human vocalizations. And certainly, parrots can in fact be taught to speak. But, in the
wild, probably of all our North American mimics, the Northern Mockingbird is the one that's the
most famous. Mockingbirds have the ability to incorporate all manner of other bird sounds into
their repertoire, and in some cases, will actually pick up and mimic mechanical sounds of things that
they hear in their surroundings. Now, the evolution of mimicry is an interesting topic. But, one of
the things that is certainly known about it is that for those species that are mimics, it is highly
adaptive behavior in that those males that are able to incorporate the richest repertoire of imitations
generally are the most successful breeders. So, that clearly, one of the adaptive functions of mimicry
is to make the males, the ones that in fact do the singing, that much more attractive by having more
complex imitations and vocalizations within their repertoire. Now, Mockingbirds, like most mimics
also have certain sounds that are quintessential Mockingbird. But, it's the add ons that really are the
important components.
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