News tagged with songbirds
MicroRNAs in the songbird brain respond to new songs (w/ video)
Whenever it hears an unfamiliar song from a bird of the same species, a zebra finch stops chirping, hopping and grooming. It listens attentively for minutes at a time, occasionally cocking its head but otherwise ...
Jun 30, 2011 |
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Tweet: Scientists decode songbird's genome, provide clues on language learning (w/ Video)
Nearly all animals make sounds instinctively, but baby songbirds learn to sing in virtually the same way human infants learn to speak: by imitating a parent.
Mar 31, 2010 |
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Study: Bird wings morph quickly to adapt to human-created environmental changes
(PhysOrg.com) -- Can species quickly evolve when humans rapidly change their habitats? The answer, in some cases, is yes, according to a new study of North American songbirds.
Mar 10, 2010 |
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Soap opera in the marsh: Coots foil nest invaders, reject impostors
(PhysOrg.com) -- The American coot is a drab, seemingly unremarkable marsh bird common throughout North America. But its reproductive life is full of deception and violence.
Dec 16, 2009 |
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Bizarre bald bird discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- An odd songbird with a bald head living in a rugged region in Laos has been discovered by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Melbourne, as part of a project ...
Jul 30, 2009 |
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Faithful males do not bring flowers
(PhysOrg.com) -- Fairy-wrens are notorious for their infidelity: despite living in seemingly harmonious monogamous pairs, females produce mostly illegitimate young, and males spend more time courting other ...
May 19, 2009 |
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Mockingbirds, no bird brains, can recognize a face in a crowd
(PhysOrg.com) -- The birds are watching. They know who you are. And they will attack. Nope, not Hitchcock. It's science.
May 18, 2009 |
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New study shows that in horse play, adult-to-young ratio is key
Adults of many animal species play a crucial role in the social development of youngsters. A new study published March 18 in the online, peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLoS ONE, reveals that the ratio of adults to you ...
Mar 17, 2009 |
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Songbirds fly 3 times faster than expected (Video)
A York University researcher has tracked the migration of songbirds by outfitting them with tiny geolocator backpacks - a world first - revealing that scientists have underestimated their flight performance ...
Biology /
Feb 12, 2009 |
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Sparrows change their tune to be heard in noisy cities
Sparrows in San Francisco's Presidio district changed their tune to soar above the increasing cacophony of car horns and engine rumbles, details new George Mason University research in the April edition of ...
Apr 02, 2012 |
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New research finds promiscuousness results in genetic 'trade-up,' more offspring
It's all about the grandkids! That's what a team led by an Indiana University biologist has learned about promiscuous female birds and why they mate outside their social pair.
Aug 31, 2011 |
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Avian 'Axe effect' attracts attention of females and males
In a case of life imitating art, avian scents given off by male songbirds have the females (and males) flocking in.
Jul 19, 2011 |
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Birdsong independent of brain size
(PhysOrg.com) -- The brains of all vertebrates display gender-related differences. In songbirds, for example, the size of the brain areas that control their singing behaviour could be linked to the size of ...
Jun 13, 2011 |
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Tweeting teenage songbirds reveal impact of social cues on learning
In a finding that once again displays the power of the female, UCSF neuroscientists have discovered that teenage male songbirds, still working to perfect their song, improve their performance in the presence of a female bird.
Feb 26, 2011 |
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Songbird's strategy for changing its tune could inform rehab efforts
It takes songbirds and baseball pitchers thousands of repetitions – a choreography of many muscle movements -- to develop an irresistible trill or a killer slider. Now, scientists have discovered that the male Bengalese ...
Jan 31, 2011 |
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Songbird
Many, see text
A songbird is a bird belonging to the order of Passeriformes (ca. 4000 species), in which the vocal organ is developed in such a way as to produce various sound notes, commonly known as bird song. There is evidence to suggest that songbirds evolved about 50 million years ago in the western part of Gondwana that later became Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Antarctica, before spreading around the world.
This 'bird song' is essentially territorial in that it communicates the identity and whereabouts of an individual to other birds and also signals sexual intentions. It is not to be confused with bird calls, which are used for alarms and contact, and are especially important in birds that feed or migrate in flocks.
Other birds have songs to attract mates or hold territory, but these are usually simple and repetitive, lacking the variety of many passerine songs. The monotonous repetition of the Common Cuckoo or Little Crake can be contrasted with the variety of a Nightingale or Marsh Warbler.
Although many songbirds have songs which are pleasant to the human ear, this is not invariably the case. Many members of the crow family make croaks or screeches which sound harsh to humans.
For more information about Songbird, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
