birdsong

Journal Club: Sing for your supper: fairy-wren chicks must sing vocal password for food

Thumbnail image for Journal Club: Sing for your supper: fairy-wren chicks must sing vocal password for food by Grrlscientist 14 November 2012

SUMMARY: Female fairy-wrens teach their chicks a vocal password before they hatch to distinguish them from brood parasitic bronze-cuckoo chicks How do parents recognize their offspring when the cost of making an error is high? To avoid wasting valuable time and energy by raising chicks of another species that commonly sneaks eggs into its nest, [...]

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Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed [Book & Podcast Review]

Thumbnail image for Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed [Book & Podcast Review] by Grrlscientist 7 December 2011

Summary: GrrlScientist reviews a new book by Simon Barnes Birdwatching with your eyes closed accompanied with a free downloadable podcast. The book teaches you to open your ears to appreciate and recognize birdsounds. Eighty percent of bird watching is listening “Eighty percent of bird watching is listening”, I often told my university students whilst we squished through [...]

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Journal Club: Jumping genes reveal deep relationships between parrots and songbirds

Thumbnail image for Journal Club: Jumping genes reveal deep relationships between parrots and songbirds by Grrlscientist 24 August 2011

SUMMARY: A new study adds support to two earlier reports that songbirds and parrots are each other’s closest relatives (Psittacopasserae), indicating that vocal learning abilities appeared in this group of birds 30 million years earlier than originally assumed. Passerines and parrots share a common ancestor as well as the ability to learn vocalization. Vocal learning [...]

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