Native to the Canary, Azores, and Madeira islands, the various species of canaries have developed their looks and impressive vocal powers through hundreds of years of captivity and selective breeding.
Writers, poets and musicians have celebrated the nightingale’s song for thousands of years. The small passerine enchants listeners with its warblings in Europe, Asia and northwest Africa.
BirdWatch Ireland tells us that these small finches are social birds often seen on telephone wires and “tops of gorse or bare tree,” often swooping to the ground to feed on insects, seeds and split grains.
What this small, plain thrush lacks in looks, it makes up with vocal pizazz, boasting a song that has been likened to a well-played flute.
Often found nesting in hayfields in the eastern United States, bobolinks get their name as a kind of onomatopoeia, from a song that makes a “joyous, bubbling, tumbling, gurgling,” tinkling sound.
The male summer tanager is apparently the “only completely red bird in North America,” making for a dramatic appearance against the green of forests, but “the mustard-yellow female is harder to spot.
The Audubon Guide to North American Birds unleashes its inner poet, describing this birdsong as “rich whistled phrases, like an improved version of the American robin’s voice.”
“Found across most of Europe, the Middle East, western Asia and the mountains of north Africa,” the woodlark is a “streaky brown bird” with white eye bands that join across the nape.
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