MAGICAL MIMIC
16th September 2020
My ornithological life had always taken me to places where the “Common” Redstart was either absent completely or, at best, not at all common. (This is where colloquial English names let us down, the French Rougequeue à front blanc describes it accurately, and sounds more romantic). So I have never had the chance or should I say, never created the opportunity, to really get to know this pretty little bird. I have Black Redstarts that nest in boxes at my house, something of a rarity in my native UK, but I seldom have experienced its “common” relative. Earlier this year I read, on a local birding community web site, of a couple of sightings up in the mountains about 35km from where I live. It was a place I could visit and still stay within the Swiss Covid “lockdown” protocol in force at the time, so I took myself off, but with little expectation that I would find a bird that was still pretty much a stranger to me.
I had never been to the spot before and, once in place, I found myself in a beautiful tranquil valley, well sheltered from the wind and traffic noise. Covid 19 had nicely taken care of air traffic noise, the sun was shining and I was happy. I was even happier when I almost immediately picked up an unfamiliar rattling song, and could hardly believe my luck that, within 2 minutes, I was looking a Common Redstart singing his heart out from the top of a dead tree:
That first experience of recording this bird in such a setting was quite magical, but it was tricky - with a steep rocky slope and quite a lot of fallen branches around, it was hard to get a secure footing, and the result was quite a lot of handling and foot noises picked up on my Telinga parabola. But the song was intriguing: a pretty little mixture of rapid rattling followed by a high-speed twitter whose pattern I could not quite work out in my head. I resolved to return again, and next time set myself up with a tripod for my parabola.
The opportunity came about 10 days later, but by then the transhumance cows had been moved up into the valley for their summer pasture. This being Switzerland, cows mean bells. However, I persevered and on this trip I found a second bird about 600m across the other side of the valley which I could also record. I had a new Sound Devices Mix-pre 3ii with me and pressed it into service. As I left I felt I had a good lot of material and was very excited to hear the results of what I felt was a successful day’s recording, (I had also found Tree Pipits and Wood Larks singing as well, so was well-pleased with myself!).
Back at my desk I listened to the results and began to research the song of the Common Redstart. I was surprised to read in Cramp etal (1977) that they mimicked other species: how come I never knew that? I was also delighted to find a great paper from André Bossus (2019) telling me that the pattern of the first part of the song could possibly be characteristic of individuals. Wow! High-speed mimicry combined with a vocal “fingerprint”, this was one fascinating bird.
I had recorded 535 song strophes from my outings, and was keen to see if my birds fitted into the general pattern described by others. It took me quite a few days of work to examine and analyse all the material both by listening, and watching the spectrograms. As I had hoped, in the second part of each strophe, I began to identify brief snatches of song that I recognised from other species, getting better at it the more I listened. The speed and accuracy of the mimicry astounded me, with some strophes containing 2-3 mimicked species. Here is a sample of some of those snatches, with the Redstart first and the “genuine” song second.
© Arlette Berlie
The phrase “imitation is the highest form of flattery” is attributed to Charles Colton, a controversial writer, active around 1820. About 60 years later, Oscar Wilde seems to have extended it to “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Now, I would not ascribe mediocrity as a characteristic of the Common Redstart. The speed and accuracy of delivery is astounding.
But mimicry is only the second part of the song. So what about that acoustic “fingerprint” ? The first part of the song of my birds did indeed convey that, to understand how that works and get the whole picture, plus find out more about mimicry click the link below and see how it all fits together.
