LEARN NC

2.9 What are the reasons animals use sounds?

By Debra Hall and Crystal Patillo

Provided by Kenan Fellows Program.

Animals use sound to warn others to stay out of their territory and also to attract a mate.

Crows are highly intelligent birds that have a complex language system. They make at least twenty-five different sounds, which include growling, squawking, squealing, cooing, and rattling. They use these different calls to identify themselves and communicate with other birds. They also have an emergency call to have other crows come quickly to help.

A group of crows is called a murder.

Learning outcomes

The learner will identify examples of body language and verbal calls used by crows and the reasons for these types of communication.

Teacher planning

Time required

One 60-minute period

Materials needed

  • Crows! Strange and Wonderful by Lawrence P. Pringle
    Photocopy pages to correspond with the scenarios listed in the Activities section.
  • audio and video recordings of crows
    See the resources in the Learn More section
  • recordings of work songs
    See the resources in the Learn More section

Activities

This lesson uses the 5E instructional model, which includes five phases: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.

Engage

Listen to the sounds of crows communicating. Discuss what the students think the crows might be communicating to each other.

Explore

Look at some video clips of crows. Ask students how they move. Students should notice that the crows walk, which is unlike other birds — other birds hop.

Arrange students into groups and give each group one of the scenarios below. Have them read the corresponding, photocopied page from the book Crows! Strange and Wonderful. Have students act out their scenarios demonstrating characteristics of crow behavior. They should focus on verbal and body language in this activity.

  • Scenario 1: Nest-building (crows other than the parents help out in this cooperative task)
  • Scenario 2: Playfulness (playing tug of war, catch)
  • Scenario 3: Using warning calls to tell something to stay away
  • Scenario 4: Assembly calls urging others to come quickly and help
  • Scenario 5: Being mobbed by other birds because they eat the eggs from other birds’ nests
  • Scenario 6: Eating (mice, berries, grasshoppers, human food, dead animals, etc.)
  • Scenario 7: Cleverness (pulling fishing line out of an ice-fishing hole and eating the bait or fish)
  • Scenario 8: Using tools like sticks to catch bugs, dropping things on ground to break them (See the video clip “Wild Crows Inhabiting the City Use it to Their Advantage” by David Attenborough and BBC wildlife on YouTube.)

Explain

After viewing all of the dramatizations, Read Crows! Strange and Wonderful aloud.

Discuss how crows communicate very effectively with body language and sound.

The following information is excerpted from the BioKIDS feature on the American crow.

American Crows are highly vocal birds. Unlike most other songbirds, males and females have the same songs. They have a complex system of loud, harsh caws that are often uttered in repetitive rhythmic series. Shorter and sharper caws called “kos” are probably alarm or alert calls. Slightly longer caws are probably used in territorial defense, and patterns of repetition may be matched in what can be considered “counter-singing,” or exchanges between territorial neighbors. “Double caws,” short caws repeated in stereotyped doublets, may serve as a call-to-arms vocalization, alerting family members to territorial intruders. Sometimes pairs or family members coordinate their cawing in a duet or chorus. Harsher cawing is used while mobbing potential predators.

People are less familiar with the large variety of softer calls crows can make. Melodic, highly variable coos accompanied by bowing postures are used among family members, possibly as greetings or other bonding signals. Coos of cage-mates become similar over time; this vocalization may therefore be the basis of the mimicry ability shown by pet crows. Crows also give several kinds of rattles.

Young crows make gargling sounds that eventually turn into adult vocalizations. Yearling crows also “ramble” or run through long sequences of different patterns and rhythms of cawing.

Crows are also an extremely social clan. They work as a team to drive away predators. Their vocalizing team replicates the building of a chorus until time to attack. This vocal ensemble lends similarities to the work songs of humans.

A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, sung while conducting a task, often to coordinate timing. Work songs are also considered communal songs, linked to a synchronized task or trade that might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. Work songs are believed to have originated with slaves in the United States. The slave masters encouraged the songs to increase productivity.

Play examples of work songs.

Elaborate

Have students relate the counter-singing of the crow to the call and response style of singing demonstrated by the work songs. Identify how the crow calls to his territorial neighbors and they will counter a response.

Extend

Compare crows to songbirds. Most female songbirds do not sing to communicate. Female crows are as vocal as the male crows. Explore the songbird and crow communication systems. All species must learn their culture system in order to be understood. Discuss how difficult the level of communication is when members are non-vocal.

Evaluate

Students should be evaluated based on their dramatizations.

Critical vocabulary

duet
a musical composition or piece for two performers
chorus
a musical ensemble of singers
counter-singing
exchanges between territorial neighbors
solo
a musical composition or piece for one performer
unison
singing or playing the same notes by all singers or players, either at exactly the same pitch or in a different octave
all and response
a song style that follows a simple question-and-answer pattern in which a soloist leads and a group responds
work song
a rhythmic a cappella song sung by people working on a physical and, often, repetitive task
spiritual
a musical form that is indigenous and specific to the religious experience African-Americans; spirituals are a result of the fusion of music and religion from Africa with music and religion of European origin

North Carolina curriculum alignment

Music Education (2001)

Grade 4

  • Goal 6: The learner will listen to, analyze, and describe music.
    • Objective 6.01: Identify simple music forms when presented aurally including AB, ABA, Call and Response, Rondo, Ballad, and Introduction/Coda.
    • Objective 6.03: Use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music performances.
  • Goal 8: The learner will understand relationships between music, the other arts, and content areas outside the arts.
    • Objective 8.02: Identify ways in which the principles and subject matter of other content areas taught in the school are related to those of music.

Grade 5

  • Goal 6: The learner will listen to, analyze, and describe music.
    • Objective 6.01: Identify music forms when presented aurally including AB, ABA, AABA, Call and Response, Rondo, Theme and Variations, Ballad, and Introduction/Coda.
    • Objective 6.03: Use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music performances.
  • Goal 8: The learner will understand relationships between music, the other arts, and content areas outside the arts.
    • Objective 8.02: Identify ways in which the principles and subject matter of other content areas taught in the school are related to those of music.

National Standards

In addition to meeting objectives of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, this lesson plan addresses the following national standards.

Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry

  • Understanding about scientific inquiry.
  • Employ simple equipment and tools to gather data and extend the senses.

Content Standard C: Life Science

  • The characteristics of organisms
  • Organisms and their environments

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

  • Characteristics and changes in populations