In the wild Purple Martins sound like this:
The song of martins in the wild
Here is a recording of a 3-year-old martin that was hatched
too late in the season to migrate, and was raised in captivity:
A captive martin doing another song
The martin was raised in the same room as an older captive common
song bird of another species (that bird had been injured as a fledgling and could not fly). Here is a recording
of the martin's "roommate":
The roommate bird's song
Obviously the young martin learned some of the
song of his older roommate. The martin also knew
his own species' calls; he had heard many recordings of those.
Here the martin starts out imitating his roomate, but stops when a person enters the room. The martin preferred
to use martin calls to communicate to people! First he gives a martin greeting. But when the person tries to get the martin to move perches, he switches to the grumbling
call that means "get out of my space!".
The captive martin's own song
People would also try to "talk to the birds in their own
language", by whistling. They often did wolf whistles, which both birds learned to do and often incorporated into
their songs.
