Attachment
Download
Males that defend territories with song benefit from sharing song types with their neighbours. Repertoire size, repertoire overlap between neighbouring birds, and song type delivery strategy were described for the South Island saddleback (
Philesturnus carunculatus carunculatus). The song elements of 27 male South Island saddlebacks in the Ulva Island population near Stewart Island was categorised into one of 33 discrete phrase types; 10 common and 23 rare types. No stereotyped song types were found in the population. All syllables had harmonics and were simple in structure, consisting of a maximum of 2 or 3 elements. Male South Island saddlebacks had small to moderate phrase type repertoires and exhibited relatively high degrees of phrase type sharing with neighbours, which was even more prevalent when phrase cores and introductory syllables were analysed separately. Birds used a mixed-mode singing strategy, but also repeated partial and full phrases in song bouts. Compared to song studies of its North Island counterpart, the South Island saddleback had a larger phrase repertoire size, but phrase type sharing between neighbours seems to be important in both subspecies.