Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Home
Today's Show: Wandering Albatross Molt
Wandering Albatross flying low over the water, it's long gray wings stretched out, white body held horizontal, pink beak
Listen In
  • Today's Show
  • Listen
    • Daily Shows
    • Threatened
    • Grouse
    • BirdNote Presents
    • How to Listen
  • Explore
    • Field Notes
    • Sights & Sounds
    • Birdwatching
    • Resources for Educators
  • How to Help Birds
    • At Home
    • In Your Community
    • Success Stories
  • About
    • The BirdNote Story
    • The Team
    • Partners
    • For Radio Stations
    • Funding
    • Contact Us
    • FAQs
    • Support BirdNote
  • Donate

Solon Towne and the Meadowlarks

“You’re a lovely creature!”
Subscribe to the Podcast
Download
  • Share This:
  • Share to Facebook
  • Share to Twitter
  • Share to Email
Western Meadowlark
© Rick Bohn, USFWS, CC

Over a century ago, a Nebraska man, an audiologist named Solon Towne, “collected” the songs of meadowlarks. He’d saunter about his farm, listening. Then he’d hurry back to his desk to transcribe the birds’ songs into musical notes. To help him remember the songs, he added words. One meadowlark, Towne imagined, warned: “Hoop la, potato bug!” Another was concerned about the eggs in its nest: “Be careful, you’ll break ‘em!” And another sang to his mate: “You’re a lovely creature!”

This page is sponsored by Kevin J. Miller in memory of Rosemary A. Miller.
Thanks for supporting the new BirdNote.org, coming in 2020!

  • Full Transcript
  • Credits

BirdNote®

Solon Towne and the Meadowlarks

Written by Rick Wright

This is BirdNote.
[Western Meadowlark, ML 516835 – 00:02 ff.]
    Over a century ago, a Nebraska man named Solon Towne began to collect his favorite sounds – the songs of meadowlarks.
[Western Meadowlark, ML 516835 – 00:02 ff.]
    According to his daughters, he’d saunter about their farm with a tuning fork in his hand, listening, then hurry back to his desk to transcribe the songs into musical notes. And to help him remember the songs, he added words.
 [Western Meadowlark, ML 516835 – 00:02 ff.]
One meadowlark, Towne believed, warned farmers: “Hoop la, potato bug!” Another was concerned about the eggs in its well-hidden nest: “Be careful, you’ll break ‘em!”  [ML 210504 :39] One just seemed tired of all that vocalizing: “Singing just as usual.” While another sang his meadowlark heart out to his mate: “You’re a lovely creature!” [Western Meadowlark, ML 516717 :10.]
For a long time, one song eluded Towne, though. Until he discovered that a baker in Omaha by the name of Jay Burns was giving away a picture postcard of a bird with every loaf of bread.
[Western Meadowlark, ML 12732
Suddenly he had it: Towne told everyone he knew that the mystery song – from a meadowlark – translated into English as “Buy your bread from Jay Burns.”
For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.
[Western Meadowlark, ML 12732]
###
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.  Western Meadowlarks: 516835, by Wilbur L. Hershberger; 210504 :30, Bruce Rideout; 516717 by Wilbur L. Hershberger; 12732, by Robert .C. Stein and Robert B Angstadt
BirdNote's theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Sallie Bodie
© 2016 Tune In to Nature.org    August 2016   Narrator: Mary McCann

ID#  townes-01-2016-08-09    townes-01

Nebraska Bird Review 32 (1964): 18-28  http://bit.ly/292PfHL

Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Mary McCann
Narrator
Support More Shows Like This
TagsMidwest vocalization

Related Resources

Read more about Solon Towne in the April 1964 edition of The Nebraska Bird Revi…Eastern Meadowlark – More at Audubon’s Guide to North American BirdsWestern Meadowlark – More at Audubon’s Guide to North American Birds

More About These Birds

Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna)

Sturnella magna

Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta)

Sturnella neglecta

Sights & Sounds

Related Field Notes

February 10, 2020

Tweets 'n' Squawks: Learn How to Identify Birds by Song

By Adam Sedgley
Nothing signals spring quite like singing birds.
December 18, 2017

What does it take to record the world’s birds?

By Gerrit Vyn

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

Support BirdNote

  • Daily Shows
  • Field Notes
  • BirdNote Presents
  • Sights & Sounds
  • About BirdNote
  • Contact BirdNote
Sign up for our newsletter!
  • BirdNote on Facebook
  • BirdNote on Twitter
  • BirdNote on Instagram

Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy