|
Titre :
|
Call mimicry by White-throated Sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis) and implications for call learning in the Passerellidae (2025)
|
|
Auteurs :
|
Konshau W. Duman, Auteur
|
|
Type de document :
|
Article
|
|
Dans :
|
Wilson Journal of Ornithology (The) (137(4) December, 2025)
|
|
Article en page(s) :
|
606-619
|
|
Mots-clés:
|
Alarm call
;
Aprendizaje vocal
;
White-throated Sparrow
;
Zonotrichia albicollis
;
call
;
contact call
;
imitación
;
imitation
;
llamada
;
llamada de alarma
;
llamada de contacto
;
mimetismo
;
mimicry
;
vocal learning
|
|
Résumé :
|
I report mimicry of heterospecific call notes in the alarm calls of White-throated Sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis). I observed and took recordings of two individuals imitating the calls of Golden-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla) throughout the nonbreeding season in California, USA, and I encountered 14 additional instances of call mimicry in my searches of publicly available media. The apparently mimicked calls are discretely different from the species-typical alarm calls of White-throated Sparrows with which they are delivered, and they closely match the alarm calls of at least three other bird species in qualitative comparisons of spectrograms. My search of publicly available media found 14 apparent cases of vocal mimicry among 492 comparable alarm call recordings (10 imitations of Golden-crowned Sparrow chip call, two imitations of White-crowned Sparrow [Zonotrichia leucophrys] pink call and two imitations of Swamp Sparrow [Melospiza georgiana] chip call). Principal Components Analysis on the mean values of eight spectral and temporal measurements of the calls of putative mimics showed that they clustered closely with the mean values for 10 individuals of each imitated species. I suggest that this mimicry is circumstantial evidence for an effect of learning in the calls of wild White-throated Sparrows, corroborated by a previously overlooked study of captive-reared individuals. I highlight two other instances of apparent call learning in the Passerellidae and suggest that variation in calls due to learning may be more prevalent than previously thought in this family.
|
|
En ligne :
|
https://doi.org/10.1080/15594491.2025.2520018
|
