From the book

“Sweep your mind’s eye north across forests from Alaska to Newfoundland, and listen to the foxy red sparrows of this group sing . . . Pick a male and listen to him sing his one song over and over, every ten seconds or so . . . ”

In these two selections of the “red” fox sparrow that occurs from Alaska to Newfoundland, listen to a male from each of two different dialects; hear how he repeats his one song over and over, with little variation. Unlike fox sparrows elsewhere, males of this red variety have only one song apiece.

From the book

“Now drop down from Alaska . . . to the Sierras from central Oregon to mid-California . . . [and listen to the fox sparrows] . . . with the especially large bills . . . Songs in these western mountains are rich and brilliant, typically beginning with one or two clear, low notes, followed by pairs and trios of rapidly slurred whistles with a few buzzy trills thrown in. . . .[He sings one song] . . . and then he’s on to the next, an entirely different song, and the next, singing up to seven different songs! . . .They mimic, too—pick out a song with the flicker’s klee-yer or a robin’s piik on the end, for example . . .”

Hear an entirely different fox sparrow singing in these three selections from western North America. In the first, the male alternates two songs, in A B A B A B A B A format.

In the second, he sings three different songs in regular fashion, A B C A B C A B C A B C.

In the third, he’s not quite so regular, singing A B C B A B C B A B; in song A, listen for the imitation of the Northern Flicker’s call, klee-yer, and in song B, hear the imitation of the American Robin’s piik call on the end.

For comparison, listen to the klee-yer call from the flicker itself and compare the flicker’s version and the sparrow’s version.