Chris Templeton and his colleagues have found that chickadees use their calls like language, complete with syntax that can...convey their location or...news of a tasty treat... warn of predators - both the type and magnitude of the threat. A soft, high-pitched call signals a threat on the wing...the signature chickadee-dee-dee flags a stationary predator...the number of those skipping-stone "dees" indicates the predator's size.
p.40, 'The Genius of Birds,' Jennifer Ackerman.
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