Bilateral Syringeal Interaction in Vocal Production of an Oscine Bird Sound

The vocal organ, or syrinx, of oscine birds has two parts, each of which has generally been presumed to operate independently of the other. A significant counter-example is now demonstrated in the production of a common vocalization by the black-capped chickadee (Parus atricapillus), in which the two acoustic sources interact in a nonlinear fashion. This bird produces a sound with multiple frequency components that are heterodyne products resulting from cross-modulation between two signals, thus providing evidence that avian phonation can involve cooperative coupling between the two syringeal sources.