Over the last month we’ve been serenaded from dawn to dusk by a wonderfully vigorous male song sparrow.

Living up to his name, he improvises a variety of pleasing-to-the-ear tunes throughout the day.

When we listen closely, we’ve found that it’s possible to hear at least two other male song sparrows within human earshot trading songs back and forth with our bird.

One of the behavioral aspects we have enjoyed while listening and watching our lively songster is his various choices of song perches. One of his favorites is atop the weather vane that adorns our garage. It’s quite high, and his voice certainly seems to resonate around the neighborhood when he’s perched on the weather vane.

On the other hand, it’s very exposed, and we’ve wondered if it makes him more vulnerable to hawks, like the merlin family that nests somewhere not too far away.

Our song sparrow, like most birds, shifts his song perches around throughout the day. This helps to make the boundaries of his territory known to any nearby, potential encroaching male song sparrows. We often find him singing from near the top of our 30-foot-high flowering crabapple tree — sometimes he stops for a moment to probe one of the blossoms for nectar or an insect.

Another favorite of his perches has been on our backyard clothesline; here his voice still resonates toward two nearby song sparrows but he’s closer to bushes where he could escape if a hawk swooped by. We have never noticed our song sparrow on the higher and more exposed roof of our house, but we do sometimes see and hear our local American robin singing from up there. Perhaps its larger size makes it somewhat less susceptible to the potential threat of the relatively small merlin.

The three or more dueling male northern cardinals in our neighborhood never sing from rooftops but almost always from near the top of the highest trees they can find.

Some birds prefer to do their singing from less-exposed locations. Gray catbirds, for example, often sing from within leafy tangles where it may take some time to easily spot them. Red-eyed vireos sing incessantly throughout the day and throughout the season but they do so while also searching for food, usually within the thick canopy of broad-leaved trees like maples, oaks, and ashes. The little ovenbird is easily detected by its loud “teacher-teacher-teacher” song but getting a look at one in the mid-level forest understory can be frustratingly difficult.

A few birds give their songs mostly in flight or as part of a breeding display flight. Many grasslands birds use this strategy, since there are few song perches available in open country. Bobolinks often will rise in the air as they sing. Others, like horned larks, will hover and soar hundreds of feet above the ground while giving their tinkling song. One of our favorite aerial songsters, although found in only a few spots in Maine now, is the upland sandpiper. Males of this wonderful, long-legged bird hover hundreds of feet above their grassland or blueberry barren nesting areas emitting a sort of mournful wolf-whistle “wup-whoo.”

For birds, all the world really is a stage. Check out your local performer now as the show is only open through mid-summer!

Jeffrey V. Wells, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Wells is one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists. His grandfather, the late John Chase, was a columnist for the Boothbay Register for many years. Allison Wells is a senior director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Both are widely published natural history writers and are the authors of the book, “Maine’s Favorite Birds.”