This is a group of bush tits and there was a red tailed hawk.

They just flew over my head.

So the bush tits were all hanging out in this bush and then they saw the red tail

hawk take off and they did that different call when the red tail hawk flew away.

It was just a pretty neat interaction.

It's Jennifer Phillips, a postdoctoral researcher at Cal Poly.

She studies how urban noise affects bird song and behavior.

And this week, Phillips was out recording bird songs at the Presidio, a park by the San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge.

So I'm out here.

It's a bright sunny day.

It's very peaceful.

In particular, she was looking for the white crowned Sparrow.

And the fall is when the young first year males actually start practicing their song.

So I wanted to get some recordings of them and see if they are picking up high performance

songs or low performance songs.

And that sounds like a maybe juvenile white crowned Sparrow in the background practicing

the song.

Phillips has been studying the white crowned Sparrow together with her former PhD advisor

Elizabeth Therryberry.

Recently they published a paper about how the birds have changed their tunes in the middle

of a pandemic.

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