History of the birds and songs in this site

The birds whose songs are available on this archive trace their ancestry to a single pair, which came from the Rockefeller University Field Research Center. All of the birds listed hatched in group aviaries that contained between 3 and 9 breeding pairs, and so had access to multiple adult males as potential song models. All birds remained in their natal aviary until at least 45 days of age (by when they have acquired a song model), and most often until over 90 days of age. Since zebra finches reach sexual maturity at 90 days, the potential song tutors for young birds may have included older siblings (and older males from other nests) as well as the adult breeding males. Although all of the young males learned their songs from adults, some of the song models were males with songs that can be described as "untutored" or "isolate songs", and hence some of the songs learned by the birds in this archive have untutored characteristics (see, for example, LG82 and LG83).

Some birds with band prefixes Y or DB were part of specific studies and may have received hormone treatment or surgery prior to the song recording in this archive. In no case did the manipulations affect accuracy of song learning. Further information about the history of a specific bird or birds can be made available if it is needed.

For a general introduction to the study of zebra finches and their songs, see this introduction to zebra finches and some information on their songs, courtship display, and brain circuitry.

Site Structure

This site consists of three main sets of entries:

Birds and Clutches. A table listing the 83 male zebra finches whose songs are currently included in the archive. The males are designated by band color and number, grouped by clutch, and listed next to the band color and number of their father.

 

Family Tree. A diagram of the relationships of all of the birds in the archives. Squares designate females and circles designate males; each symbol is labeled with the band color and number of the individual bird, and males for whom songs are available have circles with colored shading. Birds that produced offspring have symbols with strong maroon borders; females from other lines are shown with red borders. One bird, Pu10, was hatched into one branch of the tree and then mated into another branch; her symbol is shown with a dashed border at both of the sites where it occurs. The average hatch date of each clutch is also shown on the tree. The file for the family tree includes a very wide graphic (24K).

 

Songs and sonograms for the males in each clutch are available on individual pages; the page for a clutch is linked to both the symbols on the chart listing all of the males and to the family tree. Depending on the number of birds in the clutch, the pages vary in size; the average is around 45K, including graphics. Song files average about 30K.

The songs on this site are all of file type .wav and are all in the same format (8 bit, 22.050 kHz); they were recorded onto cassette tapes and then digitized (prior to 1995) or were recorded digitally (1995 and later). Zebra finch song usually consists of a string of introductory notes followed by a string of syllables, the song or "motif" that is repeated to form a song bout. The songs archived here are the minimal length necessary to show all of the syllables sung by a given bird. All songs were recorded as "directed song", meaning that they were sung to a female. Care was taken to ensure that none of the recordings were contaminated by female vocalizations. Sonograms were produced using the old version of the SoundEdit program, and were converted to gif files, at a size that is a compromise between readability and download time.

The site can be navigated by using the buttons in the frame at the top of the page. The family tree is probably the most intuitive way to explore the site, as the page for the songs of all the birds in a clutch, and their father, can be reached by clicking on the symbol for a bird within the family tree. For those who prefer the information in a tabular form, the "Birds and Clutches" page also provides links to the song/sonogram page for each clutch.

Ownership and usage of material in this archive

This page has been created to make zebra finch songs and information about the birds singing those songs available to those who find them interesting or wish to use them. If you use material from this page, please cite the source properly:

Williams, H. (1997) Zebra Finch Song Archive. http://wso.williams.edu/~hwilliam/ZFsongs/

If you are considering publishing a scholarly paper that is substantially based on the data archived here, you should consider contacting the author and owner of this archive, Heather Williams, and offering co-authorship.

This site is derived from work done by Heather Williams at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Among those who have contributed to gathering the data archived here are, in no particular order: Kerry Kilander, Franklin Mullins, Susan Gurgel, Jennifer Danforth, Mary Lou Sotanski, Tim Hale, Neil Mehta, Kirsten Staples, Brian Malone, Andrew Wright, Felicity Adams, Josh Brumberg, Stacy Davies, Jessica McKibben, Deborah Hirschmann, Matt Esposito, Nancy Piatczyc, - and, most importantly, Patti Mativi..