A summer with the birds (6/7). The reed warbler, the jukebox of world songs

Many birds imitate the songs of their fellow birds. I have heard the robin perfectly reproduce the mocking of the gull; the blackcap the sweet phrasing of the blackbird; and the garden warbler the deafening whistles of the nightingale. I have listened to the bluethroat take up the chatter of the swallow as well as the din of the bells of the mountain sheep. As for the song thrush, I even heard it one day emerge from its syrinx. (see box at the end of the article) …a car alarm.

Then, one day, I sat down to drink the travel story of the reed warbler, the most learned of the so-called “mimic” birds. It happened at the Trilbardou bridge (Seine-et-Marne), a small village nestled in the loops of the Marne that I was actively exploring with my partner at the first deconfinement, freedom obliges… The bird, a range of soft browns, stood on a willow branch below the bridge, at the edge of the river. It sang at the top of its lungs, its head raised, bristling with excitement, all the feathers of its body seeming to vibrate with each new trill or sonorous whistle.

Why all the effort? When a bird sings like this, it is saying: “Mine!” or “Love me!” or both. The song is used as much to defend a territory against rival males as to seduce a soul mate… The stakes are existential.

We had goosebumps while feeling the beginnings of a fit of laughter. As if over-caffeinated, the reed warbler chained together perfect interpretations of small bits of songs from about thirty different birds: woodpecker, finch, tit, lark, nuthatch… For the cry of the crow, she even added the effect of distance, as if the sound was coming from very far away in the open countryside. A Hollywood experience: some observations of small ordinary wild fauna border on the grandiose, without us being in front of a Bengal tiger or in the middle of playful dolphins.

Singer-songwriter

Researchers have of course combed through the prodigy’s repertoire. Each of his “performances” is an accelerated sequence of trills, chime sounds, flute, and cymbals that he composed. He intersperses them with a condensed potpourri of imitations, all broadcast like a playlist in random mode.

A single male can have memorized the songs of at least 70 birds. And the species of the reed warbler can, in total, list those of 100 other species of Europe and 113… African species! This is where our story tips into the sublime.

Unlike other birds of our latitudes, which only imitate the birds of “our home”, the greenleaf learns the songs heard during its wintering in the tropics. And it brings them back to us in Europe. So, when I listen to it here, in France, and I discern a melody that is unknown to me, I tell myself that it must be of African origin. That of a weaver, a bulbul, a coucal… and I travel thus, for free, to the other side of the world.