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Atlapetes, May 26, 1960, II 

phrase was quite distinctive.

[[image]]
"chip"  "Cheeoo"s Rattle.

The only variations in their phrase seemed to be relatively rare. The most common was omission of the terminal rattle. In a few cases, the song phrase was introduced by 2 preliminary "chip"s instead of 1. (A typical song phrase with 2 introductory notes and no rattle is presumably what the bird we watched on Pichincha on May 21 - see p. 21 - was uttering.) It is possible that some songs included an extra "cheeoo" note; but I rather doubt it.

I don't know why the songs of the [[male symbol]]'s today were so much less variable than the songs of the [[male symbol]] I watched in the same area last year - see notes of Aug. 7, 1959, pp 8-9. It is obvious, however, that the songs we heard this morning must be considered the typical "advertising" songs of the species (as this seems to be the beginning of the breeding season for most species here, and there were so many Yellow-bellies singing this morning).

Perhaps surprisingly, none of the singing birds performed any overt hostile or sexual patterns - as far as we could tell - during the period when singing was most intense.

The whole "dawn chorus" decreased abruptly at sun rise. We still heard an occasional song, rather weak-sounding, during the next half hour or so. And then complete silence!

Transcription Notes:
[[image - series of lines indicating vocal notes]]