Shy singers keep talent under wraps

HEARING a magnificent dawn chorus this morning brought back an embarrassing memory.

While giving a talk some years ago, I was asked a question. Was it true, a man wanted to know, that the bullfinch is an accomplished vocalist? The answer seemed obvious; bullfinches hardly sing at all, so I ‘held forth’ confidently on the bird’s lack of musical sophistication.

Bird song, I declared, is about getting a message out. Some species rely on colourful plumage to impress rivals and potential partners. Others sing. On balance, small birds tend to use song because even the brightest plumage is hard to see in the woods and scrub of their traditional haunts. The wren, in its dull brown garb, would go unnoticed without its song, which is extraordinarily loud for such a tiny creature. The nightingale, also in sober attire, produces one of the most beautiful sounds of the natural world. The male bullfinch, however, puffs out its magnificent orange-red breast to declare its presence. It doesn’t need song to make an impression. Both male and female produce only low-pitched squeaks which you couldn’t call music.

But how did the questioner come to believe that the bullfinch, of all birds, was a great singer? What lay behind his suggestion? The bullfinch is an oddity in all sorts of ways. Scientists are not even sure how to classify it; some argue that it’s not a finch at all. Nor does its behaviour resemble that of other small birds. A law unto itself, could it have hidden vocal talents? Had I misled the audience? The nine-volume Birds of the Western Palearctic (the BWP) is a concise summary of everything known about our birds. The vocalisations of bullfinches, it tells the reader, have been ‘well studied, in both wild and captive birds’. The bird has ‘a very large repertoire (17 distinct calls recognised)’, it says. Then comes the bombshell; ‘for the ability to learn and imitate human music in captivity, see the work of (Bill) Thorpe’. Surprise surprise! Bullfinches can become accomplished performers if sent to music school! The big book, unfortunately, describes only behaviour in the wild and does not cover what happens in captivity.

Tim Birkhead, in his Wisdom of Birds, gives an interesting account of the bullfinch’s vocal talents. Teaching a ‘blutfink’ (blood finch) to sing, he tells us, was a centuries-old practice of foresters in Germany. Young birds were taken from the nest and hand-reared. If a tune was played to them on a flute or a tin-whistle, the babies learned to mimic it perfectly or, rather, the male ones did. The trainers could not tell the sexes apart, so only half of their pupils learned to sing. The teaching took months to complete but groups of youngsters could be taught together, the foresters being rewarded for their pains by selling pets which gave perfect renditions of favourite tunes. Individuals could learn up to three melodies and a bird trained to produce the appropriate ones fetched a high price. Both Queen Victoria and Tsar Nicholas II had performing bullfinches.

So bullfinches can sing but, in the wild, there is no incentive to do so. Singing is about acquiring, and holding on to, a territory. Bullfinches, however, don’t have territories; two pairs will even nest in the same bush. The other main function of song is to acquire, and keep, a mate. Here, bullfinch behaviour is even more peculiar; couples are so devoted to each other that a bird seldom moves out of sight of its partner. The female is the boss. Ringers regard bullfinches as highly-strung and temperamental; trapped birds must be handled very carefully or they ‘go into shock’. This may be due, in part, to ‘separation anxiety’ when only one member of a pair is trapped. Few songbirds remain together during winter but bullfinches do and sexual activity continues throughout the year.

But, if it’s never used, why did such a complex singing ability evolve? The bland phrases in the ‘BWP’ may offer a clue; bullfinches, it notes, have ‘an unusually intimate relationship between pair-members’ and their ‘soft quiet song’ is ‘highly variable between individuals’. These birds, it seems, are accomplished vocalists at home but too shy to venture onto the concert stage.