Zoo and wildlife management faces a problem with bird sexing, as many bird taxa have indiscernible gender differences in size and coloration. Problematic groups are geese, cranes, rails, raptors, owls, parrots, doves, auks, shearwaters and some passerines. Commonly accepted invasive sexing techniques based on genetics, laparoscopy, morphometric and on cloacal inspection, are all needed in bird capturing and handling. Capturing and subsequent manipulations may be inapplicable for free-ranging birds, whereas distant voice-based sexing is relevant for many species. This review evaluates the potential for noninvasive sexing by separate calls or duet calls, for adult birds of 69 species from 16 orders and for chicks of 11 species from 7 orders. For adult birds of 25 species, a single call per individual was sufficient for 100 % reliable sexing by ear or using spectrographic analysis. For chicks, the potential for voice-based sexing seems to be very limited. For birds calling rarely or unpredictably, we propose a simple way of provoking vocalization using playbacks of species-specific calls that are available from sound libraries. We conclude that sexing by voice may represent a feasible alternative to the classical sexing techniques, both in the wild and in captivity.

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Acoustic-based monitoring has proved useful for many birds and seems promising for the endangered red-crowned crane. However, its validity in crane conservation is unclear in the absence of knowledge concerning the long-term stability of pair-specific duets. The redcrowned crane is monogamous and long-lived, with stable pair bonding both within and between years. Pair mates perform loud duets-a succession of male and female calls emitted with definite temporal coordination. We examined the stability of duets for five captive pairs over five years (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007) on the basis of analysis of the syllables within the duets. MANOVA showed that the effect of pair identity on syllable characteristics was always stronger than the effect of the year of recording. Cross-validation of duets from 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 with discriminant analysis (DFA) functions derived, respectively, from pooled samples from resulted in comparably high percentages of correct classification into pairs. The pairs could be reliably identified by their duets and pair-specific differences in syllable characteristics were stable with time. These data suggest acoustic monitoring is a feasible alternative to more invasive methods of identification.

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Begging behaviour is an important element in the parent-offspring conflict; it has been studied in many avian species. However, the majority of the studies have been entirely based on the call counts, and they agreed that vocal activity was a good indicator of chick’s nutritional need and/or condition. Fewer researches were dedicated to the temporal-frequency variables of the begging calls themselves and they showed contrary results. Here begging behaviour in three burrow nested, uniparous species of auks (Alcidae) was studied. These objects provide an opportunity to study the signalling value of begging calls in the absence of important confounding factors such as nestling competition and predation pressure. I recorded calls of individual chicks in two conditions: during natural feeding and after experimental four-hour food deprivation. I found that almost all measured acoustic variables contain information about the chick’s state in all studied species. The hungry chicks produced calls higher in fundamental frequency and power variables and at higher calling rate compared to naturally feeding chicks. The effect of food deprivation on most acoustic variables exceeded both the effects of individuality and species. In all studied species, the frequency variables were stronger affected by hunger than the calling rate and call durations. I suppose that such strong change of acoustic variables after food deprivation can be explained by absence of vocal individual identification in these birds. As parents do not need to check individuality of the chick in the burrow, which they find visually during the day time, the chicks could use all of the acoustic variables to communicate about their nutritional needs.

Distinctiveness of chicks' calls may arise in ontogenesis when parents can confuse their own and alien chicks, leaving their nests and forming crèches or flocks. It is unknown, however, whether the individual vocal signature retains further in ontogenesis or relaxes when the necessity in the parental care disappears. In this paper, we study the inter-and intra-individual variations of the acoustic parameters in chicks' calls in the red-crowned crane Grus japonensis, the species with prolonged development enveloping three stages: territorial under parental care, in flocks under parental care and in flocks selfindependently. We found, that discriminability of chicks' calls increased significantly to the second stage, characterized by the maximum risk for parents to confuse the own and alien chicks, and significantly decreased to the third stage, when the needs in the parent-chick vocal recognition disappeared. Our data agree with a hypothesis that the individual distinctiveness decreases in the absence of necessity in accuracy of parent-chick recognition.