[Maine-birds] Fee-bee Year Round

Thanks to Louis Bevier who wrote me that Black-capped Chickadees can give the fee-bee call year round. Figured I'd check what the BCCH doyen (Susan Smith) had to say on the subject.  Species account for Birds of North America revised by her in 2010. ( I used to have the address of a great web pages which described the use of 13 calls/songs of BCCH complete with audio recordings. Can't find it at the moment.)  Anyway, here is Susan:

"Fee-bee. Typically 2 clear tones lasting approximately 1 second in total. The first note (Fee) higher in pitch than the second note (bee). The second note has a very short amplitude break in the middle which is audible at close range (i.e. bee-ee). Remarkable consistency over the entire geographic range, except for a few populations which show unusual variants, including birds in the Pacific Northwest, Fort Collins, Colorado, and Martha’s Vinyard, Massachusetts (Kroodsma et al. 1999, Gammon et al. 2008). Black-capped Chickadees in Fort Collins, Colorado have small repertoires of 2-3 song types (Gammon and Baker, 2004). Fee-bees are given mostly by males, although not exclusively. Can be heard throughout the year, but are most commonly in late winter and spring (Avey et al. 2009). Males can transpose the two-note song across a frequency range of 860 Hz; they sing at one pitch for an average of 31-41 repeats before changing to a new pitch (Horn et al. 1992, Christie et al. 2004a).

"The Fee-bee song serves to advertise territories and attract mates (Mennill and Otter 2007). Superficially simple in structure, this two-note song contains individually distinctive components (Christie et al. 2004b) that are important in species recognition (Shackleton et al. 1992) and individual recognition (Wilson and Mennill 2010). Songs are given in extended broadcast performances at dawn during the breeding period (i.e. the dawn chorus), and are also produced in aggressive exchanges during daytime countersinging exchanges (Mennill and Otter 2007). High-ranking males sing more during the dawn chorus than low-ranking males (Otter et al. 1997); bachelor males sing more than paired males (Otter and Ratcliffe 1993); and birds provided with supplemental food sing more than non-supplemented birds (Grava et al. 2009). Both males and females listen to the singing exchanges that take place between males, and male performance during such exchanges influences female reproductive behavior and male territorial behavior (Mennill et al. 2002, 2003b, Mennill and Ratcliffe 2004a). Both frequency matching and song overlapping are important components of countersinging behavior (Mennill and Otter 2007, Foote et al. 2008a). Song-type matching occurs in the Fort Collins, Colorado population where males have song-type repertoires instead of the ability to change the frequency of the song (Gammon et al. 2008).

"Faint Fee-bee. Resembles Fee-bee song in pattern, but is always much lower in amplitude and often shows higher patterns of variability than loud Fee-bees. Given by both sexes, during the breeding season, usually near the nest. Often given by one adult to its mate, especially when males bring food to females incubating or brooding inside the nest cavity (Ficken et al. 1978); also given by parents to fledged young (Dixon and Stefanski 1970)."

I promise NOT to write on this subject again.  Well, at least not today.

Stella