What are birds saying when they chirp?

Have you heard birds outside your window in the morning? Chirp, chirp, cheep! The trees seem full of tiny voices.

Those little sounds go on and on. It almost sounds like the birds are talking. So what are birds saying when they chirp?

Birds chirp to send messages to other birds. They do not use words like you do. Each kind of chirp means one thing, and other birds understand it.

Picture a little flock of sparrows hopping in a big bush. The leaves hide them from each other. So each sparrow chirps soft and quick. That soft chirp says here I am.

When one sparrow chirps here I am, its friends chirp back the same way. Now every bird knows where the others are. The flock stays together inside the leafy bush.

Now a cat creeps quietly under the bush. One sparrow spots the cat's twitching tail. What do you think that sparrow tells the others?

The sparrow gives an alarm call, a sharp chirp that warns of danger. Cheep, cheep, cheep! It is fast and much louder than the soft here I am chirp.

Every sparrow hears the alarm call. Up they all fly to a high branch. The cat cannot reach them there, and the birds are safe.

Some chirps are long and pretty, like a song. A robin sings from the top of a tree in spring. Its song tells other robins that this tree is its home.

Up in a nest, baby birds chirp too. Their loud peeping tells their mother and father that they are hungry. A parent bird flies in with a juicy worm.

Birds chirp to send messages, like here I am or an alarm call for danger. Other birds hear each chirp and know just what it means.

The sparrows sit side by side on the high branch. Soft little chirps pass from bird to bird. Here I am, here I am.