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Bachman's Sparrow Song Examples

Made in Osage County, OK, (50 miles NNW of Tulsa) on July 3, 1998, using a Telinga parabolic stereo DAT microphone into a SONY portable MiniDisk recorder. The two tracks were merged and frequencies below 2000 Hz, mostly from wind noise, were filtered out using the Canary program sold by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is in the far northwest edge of the bird's range and was the first sighting in this survey area. It is a recording of a single bird in a dead tree. About 150 songs were recorded in 10 minutes. The first recordings were made at a distance on about 100 feet without sighting the bird. During the last five minutes we moved to within sight of the bird. The most complicated songs occurred then, until it flew. The following are recordings and spectrograms of the distinct songs. About 40 were identified.

The samples were classified starting with the clearest recordings made within sight of the bird. Then, recordings made in the distance were used to identify more types that were repeated. Finally, the unique songs were labeled. The high frequency chirp seen in A and C is found in several of the songs. It is inaudible and is left out to save disk space. The recordings are free to be used for non-commercial purposes. Otherwise, make contact at the e-mail address below.

Sound/A Spec/A Sound/B Spec/B Sound/C Spec/C Sound/D Spec/D Sound/E Spec/E Sound/F Spec/F Sound/G Spec/G Sound/H Spec/H Sound/I Spec/I Sound/J Spec/J Sound/K Spec/K Sound/L Spec/L Sound/M Spec/M Sound/N Spec/N Sound/O Spec/O Sound/P Spec/P Sound/Q Spec/Q Sound/R Spec/R Sound/S Spec/S Sound/T Spec/T Sound/U Spec/U Sound/V Spec/V Sound/W Spec/W Sound/X Spec/X Sound/Y Spec/Y Sound/Z Spec/Z Sound/AA Spec/AA Sound/BB Spec/BB Sound/CC Spec/CC Sound/DD Spec/DD Sound/EE Spec/EE Sound/FF Spec/FF Sound/GG Spec/GG Sound/HH Spec/HH Sound/II Spec/II Sound/JJ Spec/JJ Sound/KK Spec/KK Sound/LL Spec/LL Sound/MM Spec/MM

45 seconds of sound from Track 32 (1.9 MB) and the spectrogram

50 seconds of sound from Track 35 (2.2 MB) and the spectrogram

The approximate sequence of the song patterns was taken from the recording. The number after the letter refers to the number of cycles in the trill after the whistles. The "Q" pattern may be more frequent than shown here since it is inaudible on the recordings. The sequence of song patterns over the ten minutes was as follows:

Track 29 H6 DD5 H6 EE6 H6 EE6 FF7 GG7 GG6 GG7 GG6 GG7 HH11 II10 S4 Q U10 Q U9 T8 Q

Track 30 FF FF7 GG8 Q GG7 HH11 II10 S4 U10 Q U9 T8 Q T9 T8 S6 T8 S6 T8 S5 S5 V8 V8 V8 V7 V7 Y6 Y6 Y5 Y5 C9 T5 C9 C9 X10 X7 Q X9 X9 E17 W7 W6 E16 W7 E15 W7 W5 W6 Z7 Z8 Z8 Z7 Z7 Z7 AA BB5 BB5 BB5 BB5 CC7 BB4 CC6 CC6 CC6 CC7 CC6

Track 31 H7 H7 H7 J8 J7 K K L10 I7 L10 I6 I6 I7 F7 G7 F7 G7 F8 G7 O9 M8 M7 N A N A

Track 32 A A B12 B10 B8 B9 B7 C10 C9

Track 33 B9 B7

Track 34 C10 C9 C9 C4 D9 D9 D6 D8 D5 E19

Track 35 E14 Q P6 Q P8 Q P7 LL6 R8 Y6 Q KK8 Y Q R8 MM11 MM11 JJ12