I second the motion that the voice quality (pitch, tembre, etc.) is
often more important than melody pattern in bird song recognition.

Consider for example, the situation which arises when turning the
tuner on a radio. One may tune past a station and be able to identify
a song being played with only the information contained in a single
short "bleerp". The main field mark seems to be the gestalt rather than
the sequence.

Neil J. Fergusson ******************
1405 1/2 NE 56th St. * Baffins *
Seattle, WA 98105 * or *
(206) 517-5466 * bust *
cccc at u.washington.edu ******************