acoustic adaptation Ansenuza National Park dialects learning Rufous-collared Sparrow vocal variation
How to Cite
Casale, Agustin I., Darío A. Lijtmaer, and Pablo L. Tubaro. 2025. “Song Dialects of the Rufous-Collared Sparrow (Zonotrichia Capensis) North and South of Laguna Mar Chiquita, Córdoba Province, Argentina”. El Hornero 40 (1): 73-80. https://doi.org/10.56178/eh.v40i1.1513.
Songs of many bird species vary among sites, giving rise to dialects. Here, we describe for the first time the song variation of the Rufous-collared Sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis) in Ansenuza National Park, Córdoba Province. To this end, spontaneous songs of sparrows were recorded in 2024 and 2025 in the locality of Isla Larga and supplemented with existing recordings from major sound libraries (Macaulay Library and Xeno-Canto). A qualitative analysis revealed that the songs from Isla Larga have a unique trill variant that ends with an unmodulated, low-frequency tonal note that has never been recorded before in Argentina. This variant has also been detected in Mitre Department, in Santiago del Estero province. These songs also differ acoustically from those recorded south of the lagoon, in the locality of Miramar. In particular, the northern songs (Isla Larga/Mitre) feature significantly faster trills (with shorter temporal intervals between notes), a greater number of notes, lower frequencies and narrower bandwidths than those from Miramar. We discuss possible factors that may have given rise to these differences, as well as their implication for long-distance communication.
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