One day, when there's less mucous in my head, I will describe The Songs Of The Finches. It will require some time spent at the Finsterium, pen and paper in hand, and close observation. Under ideal circumstances it would take a sophisticated recording system, and sophisticated mixing and clipping software to separate out the different birds. But the closest I get is a 15+ year old radio/cassette player and no desire to buy a 10-pack of blank tapes, and GarageBand. We'll see how far that project gets.

In the meantime, I have some observations:

If I were the sun and had any inclination to be moved to wake (or, you know, move) by the crowing of a bird, the new chocolate-colored Society male would definitely get me going. His song is a glorious, riotous trill; very loud at any time of the day, and in any room of the apartment. Although the melody of his song doesn't sound like Earl Grey's, their song patterns are similar. The full Hunka Hunka Burning Love song, accompanied by the Hunka Hunka Burning Love dance, is in the form of short melody A, short melody B, short melody A, short melody B: ABAB.

Frank's song structure is quite different, being comprised of several different whistles, in the form of ABCD. As I think I've mentioned before, his song reminds me of a bosun's whistle: sweet, clear tones with a little bit of clicking in some of the segments.

I mention Frank's song because the Spice finch songs are similar to Frank's in structure — and, to a certain extent, sound. There are, I believe, four male Spice finches, and each one has a different song. The structure is generally ABCD, or sometimes ABCDE (I'll know better when I spend more time at it), although I think there's one that goes ABAB. There's one male whose song has a lot of trilling to it, like the new male Society, and others whose songs are a series of whistles, like Frank. But somewhere in between the trills and the whistles are things that sound a lot like creaky gates, and one sound that's a bit like a cassette tape getting eaten by a 15+ year old tape player.

Bird's songs can get much more interesting than that. Check out the article "Bird Songs" by Gareth Huw Davies, which is part of Richard Attenborough's "The Life of Birds" series put on by PBS. The web site has a few sound recordings, the recording of the lyre bird is amazing: it can mimic a chainsaw and a monkey, along with about a thousand other things. Peanut loves it! (You'll need Real Audio to listen to this.)