Sensitivity of California Thrashers (Toxostoma redivivum) to song syntax

Abstract Many birds have songs with variable structure and sequences. In earlier studies, we characterized some features from the song structures of California Thrashers (Toxostoma redivivum). In the Thrashers, there were a large number of phrase types, dozens to hundreds and the songs that were sequences of these many phrases were not random, but show some structure referred to as syntax. For example, a syntactic rule might be that phrase type A can be followed by phrase type B, but not type C. We, along with others, have assumed that syntax is an important feature of songs. This paper describes an experimental attempt to determine that syntax is important to California Thrashers by recording the reaction of territorial thrashers to playbacks of other thrasher songs, some of which obeyed the syntax rules we had discovered while others violated those rules. We also obtained video recordings of their behaviour near the playback speakers. We observed differences in the reactions to the birds that heard these two types of playbacks. Resident males reacted to either playback type, but more strongly when the original order was preserved. We observed difference in their behavioural response to correct or altered syntax. This indicates that the syntax of their songs is perceived in territorial defence by the birds.