Bird Call Meanings

Early one morning, a black-capped chickadee outside the window sings 'chick-a-dee-dee-dee' — but count the dees carefully, because scientists discovered something amazing: the more 'dee' notes a chickadee adds, the bigger and more dangerous it thinks a nearby predator is! Birds don't just sing because it's pretty. Every chirp, tweet, and call is a message.

- Explain three reasons birds make sounds: warning of danger, calling for a mate, and finding food - Recognize three common backyard birds by describing their calls: the robin, the chickadee, and the blue jay - Learn the real chickadee 'dee-counting' alarm system - Practice listening for bird calls outdoors and recording what you hear

Birds can't talk like people, so they use sound instead of words. A bird might call to warn its friends 'Danger, a hawk is coming!' It might sing a long pretty song to say 'This is my tree, and I'm looking for a mate.' Or it might make a soft chirp to say 'I found food over here!' Each type of call sounds a little different, so birds — and careful listeners like you — can tell them apart.

The American robin sings a cheerful, bubbly song that sounds like 'cheerily, cheer-up, cheerio' — you'll often hear it right at sunrise, earlier than almost any other bird. The black-capped chickadee sings its own name, 'chick-a-dee-dee-dee,' and scientists studying this call found that chickadees add more 'dee' notes when a predator is small and dangerous (like a tiny, fast owl) and fewer 'dee' notes for big, slow predators that are easier to escape. The blue jay is a clever mimic — it can copy the scream of a hawk almost perfectly, sometimes just to trick other birds into flying away from a bird feeder so the jay can have all the seeds.