Photographed by Bette Jackson



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Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. The voice box of humans is our larynx, perhaps most easily recognized as our 'Adam's Apple'. It's a structure that surrounds our windpipe, the trachea. In birds it's a different structure, the syrinx, that does the job. The syrinx is located lower than the larynx, where the trachea branches into the two bronchial tubes that lead to the lungs. Muscles on right and left sides of a bird's syrinx can work independently, allowing a bird to produce two different sounds simultaneously, singing a duet with itself. The Carolina wren's vocal repertoire of more than 150 different songs is made possible by the syrinx and its complex, well-developed set of syringial muscles. The Carolina wren's vocal abilities are even further showcased by duets sung between members of a pair.