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May 4, 2009 · The study confirms that zebra finches raised in complete isolation do not sing the same song as they would if raised normally, i.e., among other members of their species.
If given a choice, young birds preferentially learn conspecific over heterospecific songs, and if birds are raised in acoustic isolation, they sing abnormal songs yet still with species-specific...
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- Overview
- Silent spring
- Sparrows singing before the shutdown
- Sparrows singing during the shutdown
- Keeping quiet
As urban bustle ground to a halt this spring, white-crowned sparrow songs improved surprisingly fast, a new study says.
When behavioral ecologist Liz Derryberry saw a news report of coyotes crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in March, she immediately thought of her birds. For over a decade, Derryberry has studied the white-crowned sparrow and how urban noise has disrupted and degraded the species’ ability to communicate.
With most San Franciscans staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, she decided to seize an unprecedented opportunity to study how this small, scrappy songbird responded when human noises disappeared.
“I realized we gotta do this, and we gotta do this now,” she says.
By recording the species’ calls among the abandoned streets of the Bay Area in the following months, Derryberry and colleagues have revealed that the shutdown dramatically improved the birds’ calls, both in quality and efficiency. Male birds in particular rely on their songs to defend territory and find mates. (Read how coronavirus lockdowns are clearing the air.)
“The songs didn’t change as much as we predicted—they changed even more,” says Derryberry, of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “It highlights just how big of an effect noise pollution has.”
Just two days after Derryberry had her realization, her former Ph.D. student, Jenny Phillips, who’s based in the Bay Area, began recording background noise and birdsong at some of the same areas she had visited for her research: the Presidio neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, and other urban locations in Contra Costa County.
San Francisco birds singing before the pandemic.
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San Francisco birds singing during the pandemic.
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As an experimental control, Phillips, now a postdoctoral student at California Polytechnic State University, recorded sparrow sounds in nearby Marin County, which is more rural.
Megan McKenna, an expert on noise pollution and animal communication at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, echoes Zollinger’s praise of the research, calling it “awesome” and “exciting to see.” She also points out the researchers studied a species flexible enough to survive in urban areas, but that the pandemic’s impact on shyer, more sensitive bird species remains unknown.
Ultimately, the rapidity at which the sparrows recovered is a promising sign for the species’ ability to cope, says Derryberry. Finding ways to reduce noise, such as creating traffic-free zones or times within cities, might be a simple, straightforward way to help urban wildlife.
She adds that city dwellers in general have begun to appreciate animals in their own backyards during the pandemic.
“That goes to show that reducing noise pollution isn't just a benefit to wildlife—it's also a benefit to people, even in a really awful time.”
Nov 5, 2020 · White-crowned sparrows in the San Francisco Bay Area sang differently during California’s COVID-19-induced shutdown, recordings have revealed.
- Katherine Kornei
Living Bird Magazine. eBird. <p>A long-tailed, lanky songbird with a deeply curved bill, the California Thrasher is a key species of California chaparral. This relative of mockingbirds is an exuberant songster, and both males and females sing from the tops of shrubs, sometimes duetting.
Jan 12, 2022 · Based on this study, the biologists argue that characteristics such as learned song and plumage don’t inevitably drift in isolated populations, but that they evolve in pulses, punctuated by long periods, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, of little change.
Jan 13, 2022 · January 13, 2022. Some birds sing the same song for hundreds of thousands of years. by Robert Sanders, University of California - Berkeley. The six lineages of the eastern double-collared...
