Birdsong for the
Curious Naturalist

47. What do songless songbirds do during the dawn chorus?

6. Song Learning Often Creates Complex Songs and Large Repertoires
What? "Songbirds" with no song?
From page 107 in the book.

What do songless songbirds do during the dawn chorus? For these songbirds without a song, the dawn chorus (see "Energized Dawn Singing," p. 112) is worth exploring more intently. That time of day is most likely to tell us what a songless bird considers to be its song, if it has one, or which of its sounds functions in the same way that the songs of other songbirds do. When all other species are singing intensely during the dawn chorus, just what are these supposedly songless songbirds doing? Good question, but one with no obvious answers from any ornithologists, it seems. Are these songless songbirds passionless during the dawn chorus, or do they express their passion in some way, perhaps with vocalizations that we consider to be"calls"?