House Wrens sing with high intensity in periodic\u00a0bouts prior to pairing and often did the same later in the breeding cycle to attract more partners. Their song is described\u00a0as rapid trills of frequency-modulated notes with an average of ten syllables per bout and around four different types of syllables. The largest recorded repertoire of a house wren is 194 songs, although there is likely no sort of ceiling or limit on the size of its repertoire. However, if you only count the songs that are most used\u00a0by each male, then the effective repertoire of the average male House Wren is about 25 songs\u00a0(Kaluthota and Rendall, 2013). A close phonetic of the male House Wren is\u00a0tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-oodle-oodle-oodle\u00a0<\/em>(Bent 1948). Kaluthota and Rendall (2013) also found that only one type of song was shared by all\u00a0fifteen males, only fourteen songs were shared by more than ten males, and the rest were unique to the individual. <\/p>\n Interestingly enough, House Wrens are known to practice polygyny, in which a male can have several female partners in a given time period. Cramer (2013) says that her findings showed no correlation between the quality of males and the quality of song, specifically the trills. Older males tended to sing with higher trill consistency, which in turn, attracted more females to its domain, which she also notes is consistent with other studies. This just basically shows that the male House Wrens are much better at finding partners\u00a0than humans are (at least in comparison to me). All they have to do is trill consistently for a long time and females are more likely tobe attracted. Size and the actual song quality don’t have a significant effect on the rate of finding partners for males.<\/p>\n Song Learning in the House Wren<\/em><\/p>\n Tubaro (1990) mentions that because of the presence of dialects, then it is likely that song is learned. Sawhney et al. (2006) mentions that the earliest time for fledglings to start making sounds that resemble some kind of song is around the age of 25 days, and this continues for about another week or two until a clearer song starts to be produced.<\/p>\n In addition, malesand females have their own calls that are commonly known to sound like chatters, churrs or rattles. An unmated male will produce a high-pitched squeak when a female arrives on his territory, and it eventually stops when the female pairs with the male. Both sexes occasionally produce this low “chut” sound at no specific intervals. Both also produce a sort of alarm that warns others of predators in order to tell others to run, distract the predator, and\/or protect the nests (Ficken and Popp 1996). In Argentina, two more types of calls by House Wrens were recorded as responses to predators, one being longer and harsher, and the other being shorter and quieter (Fasanella and Fern\u00e1ndez, 2009). Overall, there are a wide variety of calls within the House Wrens, and future studies are necessary in order to log and assess the meaning of each one.<\/p>\n Dialects in House Wren song:<\/em><\/p>\n Not much is known about dialects within the House Wren song since very few actual songs\u00a0are ever shared between a large number\u00a0of the males. However, despite the enormous repertoire that each male\u00a0holds, there is very little, noticeable variation between their songs. The repertoire is highly variable among locations and individuals, but there are very distinct characteristics that tie them all together. For example, the sonogram data below shows that there is a repetitive structure to each song as well as a two-part system. The first part tends to include quiet and brief syllables while the second part has more frequent and louder syllables compared to those in the first part (Tubaro, 1990). The diagram below has some sonogram drawings that are also from Tubaro’s study.<\/p>\n![\"House](\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/sensoryecology\/files\/2015\/04\/House-Finch-song-300x202.png\")
<\/p>\nThe figure above shows two sonogram\u00a0examples of male, House Wren songs, both recorded in Ohio.<\/em><\/h4>\n
Johnson, L. 2014. House Wren (Troglodytes<\/span> aedon<\/span>), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online:\u00a0<\/em>http:\/\/bna.birds.cornell.edu\/bna\/species\/380<\/span><\/em><\/h6>\n
![\"sonogram2\"](\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/sensoryecology\/files\/2015\/04\/sonogram2.png\")
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