Voice of the Wild

This is Illinois Extension’s Voice of the Wild. Our birdsong will start in five seconds, so find someplace quiet, take a deep breath, and enjoy.

You might find this little yellow bird in a stand of willows next to a pond or hear its call while walking past the shrubby edge of a creek. Its song is an anthem of the early summer and it’s sung in two phrases. The first goes “sweet sweet sweet” and the second can be heard as “I’m so sweet” or “song so sweet.” The singer is yellow from head to tail with just a tinge of olive across its back. In the breeding season the males have handsome red streaks down their front.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab of Ornithology for our bird sounds. And thank you for tuning in to learn a new bird call with Illinois Extension.