Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: fcooke

Oddly enough I have been seeing more diverse bird life recently. More blue jays, robins, etc. And then a couple of days ago a pair of starlings. I thought they usually stayed pretty close to the ocean. We are about 75 miles from the ocean. But they are fun to watch. I still have never caught our blue heron taking a fish. But I did see our bear a few days ago. she and I have an agreement we won't eat each other.

quote:

ORIGINAL: fcooke

Oddly enough I have been seeing more diverse bird life recently. More blue jays, robins, etc. And then a couple of days ago a pair of starlings. I thought they usually stayed pretty close to the ocean. We are about 75 miles from the ocean. But they are fun to watch. I still have never caught our blue heron taking a fish. But I did see our bear a few days ago. she and I have an agreement we won't eat each other.

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Most bird species are slow to change their tune, preferring to stick with tried-and-true songs to defend territories and attract females. Now, with the help of citizen scientists, researchers have tracked how one rare sparrow song went "viral" across Canada, traveling over 3,000 kilometers between 2000 and 2019 and wiping out a historic song ending in the process. The study, publishing July 2 in the journal Current Biology, reports that white-throated sparrows from British Columbia to central Ontario have ditched their traditional three-note-ending song in favor of a unique two-note-ending variant—although researchers still don't know what made the new song so compelling.

"As far as we know, it's unprecedented," says senior author Ken Otter, a biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. "We don't know of any other study that has ever seen this sort of spread through cultural evolution of a song type." Although it's well known that some bird species change their songs over time, these cultural evolutions tend to stay in local populations, becoming regional dialects rather than the norm for the species. This is how the two-note ending got its start.

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

So the male birds did change their tune and are doing so again. The question is, does it help get the females:

Twenty-year study tracks a sparrow song that went 'viral' across Canada

quote:

Most bird species are slow to change their tune, preferring to stick with tried-and-true songs to defend territories and attract females. Now, with the help of citizen scientists, researchers have tracked how one rare sparrow song went "viral" across Canada, traveling over 3,000 kilometers between 2000 and 2019 and wiping out a historic song ending in the process. The study, publishing July 2 in the journal Current Biology, reports that white-throated sparrows from British Columbia to central Ontario have ditched their traditional three-note-ending song in favor of a unique two-note-ending variant—although researchers still don't know what made the new song so compelling.

"As far as we know, it's unprecedented," says senior author Ken Otter, a biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. "We don't know of any other study that has ever seen this sort of spread through cultural evolution of a song type." Although it's well known that some bird species change their songs over time, these cultural evolutions tend to stay in local populations, becoming regional dialects rather than the norm for the species. This is how the two-note ending got its start.

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-twenty-year-tracks-sparrow-song-viral.html

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

One morning I was woken rather late, in a jolting fashion. The Sun was well up and I heard this cardinal on my window air conditioner. Obviously a male, I could tell (the way you often can when you're just waking, still half asleep) what he was singing. It went like this (the first syllable descending with the last kicking up):

Sooooooooooooooo purdee, Soooooooooooooo purdee, Soooooooooooooo purdee purdee purdee purdee!

He was singing an ode to himself.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Dug this up - took it 10 years ago. If one of these is outside your window, no alarm clock necessary.

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ORIGINAL: Will_L

A pair of mockingbirds decided to nest in the juniper bush in my front yard. I'm glad that I sleep in the back bedroom since they are teaching the chicks their song, a mashup of every single car alarm in existence. They go until around 3:30 in the morning, take a nap and start up again around 4:30. Didn't have them in my area until West Nile Fever killed off a lot of the sparrows and pigeons which we were inundated with.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Well, when you have a jungle on your balcony you have to expect kookaburras! Did he laugh at you (per the song)?

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ORIGINAL: Zorch

This thread is for birdbrains.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

start listening at 1:08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKEPkDvfyz0

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I knew an amazon that did the music from Jurassic Park. Perfect for the little T-Rex. When the T-Rex's pupil would narrow from the flashlight in it's eyes, so would the pupils on Bogart the amazon. If you know amazons, that means hide your fingers or they might get bitten off.