I was awakened this morning about 4 AM by a robin singing the familiar "Cheerio" song. Then he launched into variations. I considered closing the window, but then I got a sheet of paper and began writing graphics of the sounds. I'd read about making "hand sonograms" in Birdsong: A Natural History by Don Stap, which I reviewed in 2005.The calls were quite varied, coming about 3 seconds apart, or twenty per minute, so the exercise was quite challenging. This image shows a nine-minute segment that I wrote just before getting up to start the day. I show only eighteen variations here. I didn't record multiples, and I missed a lot. It takes tons of practice to get anywhere close to writing everything down! Had I got all the calls, there'd be about 180.
The robin is not known as a versatile bird. I'd have thought this was a mockingbird, except that calls for other birds were not mixed in. We have a mockingbird that frequents our yard, and his calls are wildly varied.
A note on the scanning: I first put the notebook paper in my scanner and ran a preview. Marks from the other side were showing through. I put a piece of black paper on top and re-ran the preview. Now there was nothing showing through. I used a very steep custom contrast curve to make the pencil marks this distinct. The pencil marks are actually a light to medium gray.
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