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Notes on the Vocalizations of the Mexican Chickadee

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Notes on the Vocalizations of the Mexican Chickadee SHORT COMMUNICATIONS Condor, 81:421-%23 @ The Cooper Ornithological Society 1979 NOTES ON THE VOCALIZATIONS April 1972. The harsh “dee” notes are more prolonged OF THE MEXICAN CHICKADEE and lack the overtone structure of those of the Black- capped Chickadee shown in Figure lc. Vocalizations resembling this pattern were uttered by presumed fe- KEITH L. DIXON males accompanying their mates at Rustler Park on 17 and 19 April. The pattern shown in Figure lb was AND heard in only one case, after calls of the Figure la type DENNIS J. MARTIN were played back to the lone individual on 15 April. This figure is included here because the duration of the “dee” calls of this agitated individual is similar to The natural history of the Mexican Chickadee (Parus those of P. carolinensis (Smith 1972:51) and of P. atri- sclateri), which nests in the United States only in the capillus (Fig. lc). upper reaches of mountain ranges in southeastern Ar- Of particular interest are those vocalizations uttered izona and adjacent New Mexico, has received scant by one member of each of several pairs in the conif- attention. Although this species was considered by erous forest in the vicinity of Rustler Park in response Snow (1956) to be closely allied to the Black-capped to simulated intrusion (= playback of vocalizations and Carolina chickadees (P. atricapillus and P. cm-o- similar to Fig. la) or to the calling of neighbors. One linensis), descriptions (e.g., Peterson 1961:212) suggest of several distinctive sounds was a sequence of notes that its vocalizations are aberrant within the group. R. we dubbed “swehbegeet” (Fig. 2a). A version appar- T. Peterson (quoted by Brandt 1951:601) observed that ently unique to one individual appears in Fig. 2~. A “instead of clear whistling notes, the bird sings a nasal series of syllables “peeta-peeta,” resembling a song of dzay‘ dzee, ’ so low in pitch that this seems to belong the Plain Titmouse (Parus inornatus), occupies the to a much larger bird and is not chickadee-like at all”. first part of Figure (2b). The same syllable, coupled J. T. Marshall (in Pough 1957: 195) commented on vari- with an introductory component and repeated in slow- ations in the songs, characterizing a common version er cadence, constituted another pattern (2d). At least as “ka-breee, ka-breee, ka-breee.” He noted that the one individual used a sequence of notes (Fig. 2e) as a voice of P. sclateri was “quite different” from that of separate utterance, “sitchowee,” although this se- the Mountain Chickadee (P, gambeli). In view of these quence usually was a prefix to the common form of apparent departures from the norm for the North Amer- “swehbegeet” (as in Fig. 2a) and to “speetit-speetit” ican gray-backed chickadees, we endeavored to obtain (Fig. 2d). In one bout this phrase was appended as a tape recordings of the vocalizations of the Mexican SUffiX. Chickadee during the breeding season. These signals of the Mexican Chickadee are loud and ringing and can be heard readily for 150 to 200 m. METHODS They are well characterized by Chapmans’ (1898:38) Visits to the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern observation from Veracruz: “The call of this titmouse Arizona were made by Dixon, 25-28 April 1968, and is a rapid, vigorous double-noted whistle repeated by both of us, 15-19 April 19?2. These dates may be three times, and not at all like the notes of Parus atri- compared to that for the earliest set of chickadee eggs capillus.” from this locality (10 May) reported by Brandt Bouts of singing by one individual usually consisted (1951:673). On the first visit, when we were stopped of repetitions of one of these “themes.” One chickadee by persisting snowbanks, chickadees were inconspic- on 19 April, provoked by broadcast vocalizations, ut- uous and few recordings were obtained. In 1972 we tered the “swehbegeet” pattern 31 times in three min- played back tape-recorded vocalizations to the chick- utes of uninterrupted and (to our ears) unanswered adees, and recorded the responses of individuals oc- calling. Occasionally an individual shifted to another cupying five contiguous territories. Most of the record- form within a bout (as shown in Fig. 2b and c). How- ings were made at Rustler Park, 2,590 m elevation, 17 ever, there was little tendency of the responding in- and 19 April 1972 using a Nagra III BH recorder at 19 dividual to duplicate the motif of the bird initiating the cm/s. The sounds were analyzed on a Kay Electric Co. exchange (Table 1). In this respect, the behavior of the Sona-Graph, Model 661 A, using a wide band-pass fil- Mexican Chickadee is similar to that found in P. car- ter. After some 70 representative sonograms were olinensis by Smith (1972: 104). made, we listened to the tapes again to review aspects The vocalizations shown in Figure 2 were used in of the birds ’ encounters. In addition, we reviewed tape territorial defense. One member of each of what we recordings of Mexican Chickadee vocalizations made judged to be six pairs responded by approaching the in the Chiricahuas in May 1977, by investigators from source of broadcast signals while uttering one or Cornell University. another of those vocalizations. Those individuals aroused by the calling of neighbors moved toward what RESULTS AND DISCUSSION we inferred to be common boundaries for further ex- A call considered representative of the species and cor- changes of “motifs” from this general class of displays responding to the “chickadee dee” call of P. atricap- that had evoked the initial response. Thus these signals illus appears as Figure la. The distinctive buzzy qual- reflect “aggressive states” as asserted for the Carolina ity of the introductory notes is evident in this figure, Chickadee by Smith (1972:91). However, the re- which was recorded from a lone individual encoun- sponses differ from those seen in Black-capped (Dixon tered at 1,525 m elevation in South Fork Canyon on 15 and Stefanski 1970), Carolina (Smith 1972:33) and 14211 422 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS 0 - -. ~__ --.m ‘._,^__._ - .- _ 0 1.0 1 2.0 FIGURE 2. Audiospectrograms of vocalizations ut- 0 1.0 2.0 tered by Mexican Chickadees during territorial dis- putes. a, “swehbegeet swehbegeet cheeyay;” b, “pee- ta-peeta” shifting (c) to “swehbegeet cheeyay;” d, FIGURE 1. Audiospectrograms a and b are the calls “speetit-speetit” (compare to b); e, “sitchowee.” of the Mexican Chickadee (see text); c, is the corre- sponding “chickadee-dee” call of the Black-capped Chickadee. The values on the ordinate refer to fre- quency in kHz; those on the abscissa, time in seconds. boundary and in reiterating boundaries from a dis- tance, we consider them to be the songs of the Mexican Chickadee. Strikingly absent from the exchanges we witnessed on 17 and 19 April 1972 were any vocaliza- Mountain (Dixon 1972) chickadees, in which the vocal- tions resembling the sustained pure tones of the “fee- izations eliciting the approach of the rivals were not bee” song of the Black-capped Chickadee (see Dixon those uttered in the subsequent confrontations along and Stefanski 1970:Fig. 1). In this respect our findings the boundary. In these other gray-backed chickadees, match those of Peterson quoted above. R. P. Balda those vocalizations, usually transliterated as “fee-bee” (pers. comm.) likewise stated that he did not recall hav- and considered to be the songs, serve chiefly to attract ing heard such an utterance from the Mexican Chick- the skirmishers to a common boundary. Although this adee during visits to Rustler Park in May in each of song may be uttered throughout the day, its common several years. The rate of delivery and manner of sing- use is in a “dawn song” context. Similarly, on 27 April ing of four individual Mexican Chickadees recorded 1968 and 19 April 1972, the “peeta-peeta” vocalization by J. L. Gulledge and associates in the Chiricahua (Fig. 2b) was uttered as a dawn song while the sun was Mountains 24-27 May 1977 (presumably during incu- rising. Inasmuch as the “peeta-peeta” vocalization is bation) reflect the responses described above. used interchangeably with the other “aggressive state” Careful scrutiny leads us to suggest that there are signals, and functions both in attracting a rival to a certain similarities in the form of constituent notes of TABLE 1. Vocalizations given by Mexican Chickadees in response to broadcast or natural vocalizations of conspecifics. Answering vocalization Initial vocalization see 7.ay zay swehhegeet speetit peeta-peeta sitchowee Broadcast see zay zay (Fig. la) 0 1 0 0 0 swehbegeet (Fig. 2a, 2c) 0 0 1 3 0 Spontaneous swehbegeet (Fig. 2a, 2c) 0 3 0 2 0 speetit-speetit (Fig. 2d) 0 3 0 0 0 peeta-peeta (Fig. 2b) 0 1 0 0 0 sitchowee (Fig. 2e) 0 0 0 1 0 Responder answered with same vocalization (motifl Responder answered with different motif 12 Total Responses 15 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS 423 some of the vocalizations of several species of Parus. for assistance, to Russell P. Balda and Joe T. Marshall, In particular, there are resemblances among elements Jr. for helpful comments on the manuscript, and to of the “sitchowee” of P. sclateri, “T-slink” of P. car- James L. Gulledge for providing tape recordings from olinensis (Smith 1972:24-26), “musical call” and com- the Cornell Library of Natural Sounds. Financial sup- ponents of the “trilled call” of P. hudsonicus (McLaren port was provided by the National Science Foundation 1976), and one of the songs of the Plain Titmouse (Dix- (Grant GB 6536) and by the Frank M.
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