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

They just flew over my head.

So the bush tips 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's just a pretty neat interaction.

It's Jennifer Phillips, assistant professor at Texas A&M San Antonio University.

She studies how urban pollution affects birds.

Last fall, Phillips was out recording bird songs in 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 crown 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 crown sparrow in the background practicing

the song.

Phillips has been studying the white crown sparrow together with their former PhD advisor

Elizabeth Therryberry.

Last year they published a paper about how the birds change their tunes in the middle

of a pandemic.

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