Continue your journey to true kinship with the natural world.

"A single vociferous coyote aired the breaking news about the wolf... The pivotal clue that morning, the auditory signal that broadcast the pack’s presence, was the coyote’s unique barking howl, a call that is reserved exclusively for situations like this—it is the coyote word for “wolf.”" In this video, coyote alarms at the Yellowstone Canyon wolf pack near Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park.

© George Bumann

"The lack of noise pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area allowed white-crowned sparrows to literally sing a different tune.Instead of shouting over busy street vendors, honking taxis, delivery trucks, and construction noise to delineate their territories and attract mates, the birds were able to sing a richer, more delicate and beautiful brand of song."

© Jeff Reed

"I knew very few birds at that time, but one I did know—the American robin, a group of them actually—was in an uproar. The robins around our home usually seemed content bouncing around the cropped grass and engaging in tugs-of-war with worms. These birds, by contrast, were jumping around and chirping in a mad fury over something I could not see."

© Jennifer Golding

"I rendered my best yelp as I had rehearsed it for months. It was then followed by my best “tree call,” “excited cutting of a hen,” “assembly call,” “fly down cackle,” “kee kee run,”“cluck and purr,” and, of course, a gobble."

© George Bumann

"I did this [tallying exercise] with wild turkeys each spring for a period of three or four years, logging each sound that triggered them to gobble. The final count of gobble-inducing noises climbed to over a hundred natural and man-made sounds."

© George Bumann

"I was learning the diverse songs of eastern wood warblers. The narrator introduced the next bird recordings by saying, “Blackpoll warbler,” but nothing played."

© Eric Liner / Macaulay Library

"As researchers suspected, they could. The crows knew their abductor and reacted aggressively toward the caveman. The person wearing the caveman mask was subjected to raucous, scolding calls and dive-bombing flights by the birds."

© John Marzluff

"Erick established a synchronized grid of microphones across a thousand-meter-by-thousand-meter plot of forest. Into one corner of this landscape, Erick piped in the prerecorded sounds of a chickadee cursing at a Cooper’s hawk."

© Jeff Reed

"The reason we don’t see more animals is that they know we’re coming long before we get there. I once scared a robin perched on the roof of our garage with a single step. My foot leaving the deck caused the robin to emit a harsh cheep. Its call was instantly repeated by another robin in the neighbor’s willow tree about two-tenths of a mile away."

© George Bumann

"Dressed in an ashen suit with a white belly and a tail about the same volume as its body, the squirrel continues its disquieting critique. It mixes the chuffing sound with high-pitched wheezes."

© George Bumann

"After I imitated the alarm bark of a gray wolf for a class some years ago, a student who worked at a captive wildlife facility exclaimed, “That’s exactly what the wolves do when the veterinarian shows up!"

© Aaron Schuerr

"Specifically speaking, a coyote’s distinctive upturn in pitch near the end of its bark-howl note is a telling clue that the big dogs [wolves] are in town. While coyotes seem to have variations on the alarm bark for other threats, to me, this upturn is the wolf specific signature embedded in Canis latrans’s most disquieting call—and it is the exact coyote vocalization I heard that morning in Mammoth Hot Springs."

© George Bumann

"Coyotes verbally harass cougars too, and may have a tailor made version of the bark-howl for these big cats. The cat call, asI have witnessed it, is a mouthier “husky” howl embedded in the barking coyote’s cry."

© Sarah Fontaine

"Every time the roboraptor’s head spins or tail jiggles, it elicits wave after wave of intensified alarms from the amassing flock.This mob scene builds further as more sparrows, nuthatches, and chickadees, as well as robins, creepers, and even squirrels, join the fray. Harassment of the roboraptor quickly becomes a neighborhood affair."

© Jeff Reed

"The chickadee’s song is a whistled seee saww. Occasionally, a third syllable will be thrown in, making the song sound a bit like cheeeze burrr-ger."

© Jeff Reed

"When I’m out walking with Hobbes, our Labrador, with all his retriever antics, chickadees often elicit strings of four to six dee notes after the chicka part. A dog is a ground threat, and though bothersome, Hobbes is of limited danger to these birds. WhenI leave Hobbes at home and walk alone—moving quietly, going slowly, and paying attention to my surroundings—I am met with single- or double-noted chickadeedees."

© George Bumann

"A minute later, a Townsend’s solitaire gave its characteristic single-note call about two hundred yards to the north. This vocalization can be used for a few things, but like the chickadee’s chickadeeing, it can also be used as an alarm. An American robin soon barked using a sharp peek and a red squirrel let loose with a volley of descending, chattering notes. Was this a minor territorial squabble between squirrels or did this also mean trouble?"

© George Bumann

"There is one more level of alarm that would be helpful to discuss before we move on. Code red for many birds is conveyed with seet calls similar to the fingernail call employed by that gray squirrel in New York."

© Jeff Reed

"With time, however, some interesting patterns emerged. The data showed that not only did the animals have calls that varied in reference to air or ground attack, but they had additional calls for coyotes versus dogs, and for hawks, badgers, and humans, some of which could be parsed out by the unaided human ear."

© Con Slobodchikoff

"The most common raven call I heard from that cabin in Yellowstone was a triplet of caws. I had no idea what this common theme meant. The insistent trio of notes seemed to be repeated in an unending, almost monotonous loop...The pace of the calls would sometimes quicken and come with extra notes. I might hear four, five, or eight caws in a row.... Then there was the time when I witnessed the use of two caws instead of the usual three.... Wings went up and bodies went down; both birds darted from side to side as the trailing bird attempted to push the other downward. This“chase call,” as it is termed, is part of how ravens deal with trespassers... Variations on the raven-on-raven chase call would soon clue me in to the presence of other species—especially eagles... I also feel ravens have a different chase call for bald eagles... I’m still baffled.Froggy-sounding chuckles from treetop ravens, or pairs in flight saying things like glug-glug-glug or coo-coo-coo, kah-kah-kah, leave my head spinning. Water drops, snaps, clicks, and gurgles are all in the mix, along with a zinger that sounds like wahhh wahhh, wahh–wahh, which confuses me to this day."

© George Bumann

"Just last year, a student of mine from the Netherlands sent me a video with the inquiring caption: “Is this the raven word for wolf?”"

© Michan Biesbroek

"Ebullient howls resonated from the wolf enclosures as Shauna approached the facility.Interestingly, the gleeful yips, barks, and sonorous tones started not when she pulled into the parking lot, but when she was still a mile away."

© Jeff Reed

"There is one more level of alarm that would be helpful to discuss before we move on. Code red for many birds is conveyed with seet calls similar to the fingernail call employed by that gray squirrel in New York."

© Benjamin Clock / Macaulay Library

"Poised on rigid legs, the mother bleated once to get the attention of her heedless youngsters—they stopped. She vocalized a second time to call them back to her side, and they dutifully returned."

© George Bumann

"The birds continued picking through the grass and talking to one another in low grunts and impish squeaks. I felt supremely blissful, receptive, and yes, invisible."