“One dialect had basically taken over the city,” says Luther, adding that it is officially called the “San Francisco dialect.”
Songs need to be heard, not just because they sound pretty — birds use them to talk to each other, warn away rivals and attract mates.
“If you go into a bird’s territory and play a song from the same species, they think a rival competitor has invaded its territory,” Luther says. “It’s just the same way if you’re in your house and you hear strange voices, as if someone broke in.”
If the rival bird can’t hear the song and vamoose, then it may come to bird fisticuffs. That can lead to injury or death.
To do the study, the researchers found territories of 20 sparrows in the Presidio where there’s lots of traffic, especially in the morning rush hour when the birds do most of their singing.
They set up an iPod speaker, shuffled the sparrow songs from 1969 and 2005 and waited for a reaction.
The result?
“The birds responded much more strongly to the current song than to the historic song,” says Luther, adding that the sparrow flew toward the speaker while chirping a “get out of here” song. “The (current) songs are more of a threat.”
Chirps from 1969 didn’t raise a feather. “They don’t think that bird is as much of a threat,” he says.
This study sets up the next one, Derryberry says. The next question is whether the females care about these changes or if any song will do. “We want to understand if the females discriminate between these songs as well,” she says.
White-crowned sparrows are interesting birds because their songs changed with the noise environment, Derryberry says. “Here’s a bird that’s able to hang around,” she says. “A lot of species haven’t been able to adapt to and live in an urban environment.”
Author: Michele McDonald at mmcdon15@gmu.edu
Photos: The Derryberry Lab, Tulane University
Pages: 1 · 2
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