THE WHISTLED SONGS OF THE EUROPEAN STARLING STURNUS VULGARIS AND THE SPOTLESS STARLING STURNUS UNICOLOR IN NORTH-EAST SPAIN

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the whistled songs of two allopatric populations of the European starling and spotless starling in NE Spain. The results show that European starlings in NE Spain sing the same whistled themes found earlier in other European populations and confirm the universal character of these themes. There are some differences between European starlings from NE Spain and other populations: rising phases appear for Inflection theme high-form, Inflection theme and Simple theme, and also differences of rate of emission appear for others (Rhythmic theme). Harmonic theme has not been found. Likewise, the first analysis of the spotless starling's whistled song shows that it shares the same general whistled song structure with the European starling; whistles have similar structural parameters (modulation, duration, frequency) and can be classified in the same categories or themes; a new theme appears, the Trilled theme, which has not been found to date in the European starling. Dialectal areas have been found in both species for the same themes (Inflection theme, Simple theme). The males of both studied populations have larger repertoires in comparison to other studied populations of the European starling.