Swamp sparrows employ 3-5 different song types, and the neural activity differs depending on which song is heard or sung.

Those walking the trails can encounter migrating warblers and other land birds, pond ducks, Virginia rails, bitterns, nesting marsh wrens and swamp sparrows.

Regional Dialects Found Dr. Marler and his colleagues reared male song sparrows and swamp sparrows in isolation.

But while the song sparrows learned some parts of the swamp sparrow's simple song, the swamp sparrows learned almost none of their close cousin's elaborate melody.

Overall, the HVC auditory motor neurons in swamp sparrows are very similar to the visual motor mirror neurons discovered in primates.

In search of these auditory-motor neurons, Jonathan Prather and other researchers at Duke University recorded the activity of single neurons in the HVCs of swamp sparrows.

She saw a blue heron wing above the marshes on the far side of the lake, heard the hubbub of nesting redwings and swamp sparrows, above them the clear notes of olive-sided flycatchers.

As the birders trekked through the park, they discussed those present and absent from the morning's count: buffleheads, blue jays, mute swans, swamp sparrows, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and ruddy ducks - creatures a person might never see in an urban lifetime, simply because he never looked.

Swamp Sparrow, Melospiza georgiana.

The Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana) is a medium-sized sparrow related to the Song Sparrow.