By Ellen Gawarkiewicz –
“Is that a bird?” asks one of my fellow Field Naturalist Interns, as we stand on an outcropping at Raven Ridge Natural Area on the border of Hinesburg, Monkton, and Charlotte, Vermont. When I told him that the song he was hearing was that of the Hermit Thrush he said that he had “never heard a bird sound so much like music”. I had never really considered the musical elements of birding before this comment and then felt compelled to look into the compositional stylings of the Hermit Thrush.
This medium-sized member of the genus Catharus (which also happens to be the state bird of Vermont) sings a song that is perhaps that most magical string of notes I have ever heard. Being somewhat of a musician and much more of a birder, I love listening to the song of the Hermit Thrush with its melodic, tumbling trills, like a flute harmonizing with itself. According to a number of auditory studies, the notes of the song of the Hermit Thrush are related to each other by pitch ratios that differ by simple integers of harmonic notes [1]. This discovery highlights the fact that the song is more similar to music produced by humans than to the songs of other birds that have also been studied in this way. It is also noted that certain harmonies produced by the Hermit Thrush are in line with those made by human music [2]. On top of all this musical jargon, it has also been discovered that this bird could be capable of producing other notes in its song, meaning that the species chose to sing in such an ethereal harmony.
You don’t need to have a musical background to appreciate the sounds of nature, the birds singing, the creaking of young trees as they sway in the wind, the croaking of a distant frog, or a stream gurgling and dripping down a mountainside. Among all of these sounds, however, nothing resembles music quite as closely as the song of the Hermit Thrush.
Hear it for yourself! https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hermit_Thrush/sounds
Emily Hamel is a rising UVM senior and Wildlife Biology major taking part in a undergraduate field naturalist pilot program this summer.
[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26498-thrushs-song-fits-human-musical-scales/
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