How Do Birds Learn to Sing?

Birds sing for a variety of reasons. Some sing in hopes of attracting a mate, to identify and defend their territories or as a means of communication. Both male and female birds sing, though the males usually produce the most melodic songs. Two of the most gifted songsters are the brown thrashers and northern mockingbirds, with their ability to mimic hundreds to thousands of different bird songs.

  1. Inherited Vocal Ability

    • Some species of birds, including flycatchers, are born with the species-specific song patterns genetically encoded in each individual bird's make-up. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, attempts to confuse young Alder flycatchers into learning the songs of another flycatcher species failed. Researchers played recordings of Willow flycatchers to 10-day-old Alder flycatchers that had been removed from the nest. The youngsters still sang the song of their own species. Experiments involving this bird group--the suboscines--demonstrates the inherent ability to produce the correct song even when raised away from their own species.

    Vocal Learners

    • True songbirds of the Oscine suborder of Passeriformes, such as canaries, finches, sparrows and thrushes, are vocal learners that learn to sing by listening to adult birds of the same species. If young birds of these species are removed from members of their own species, they will still vocalize and produce songs, but the songs do not follow the normal species-specific patterns.

    Stages of Learning

    • Some songbirds, such as canaries and starlings, are called open learners. They have the ability to learn new songs even after reaching adulthood. However, most juvenile songbirds learn to sing in two phases, with the sensitive--or critical--period being the time when they memorize new songs by listening to the adult males of their species. Once this period has passed and the birds enter the second learning phase, they begin to practice what they previously memorized. The two phases vary in length depending upon species.

    Dialects

    • Birds of the same species but living in different geographical regions sing similar songs, but often produce distinct dialectic variations. Young birds learn to sing in these dialects, much like human babies learn dialects by listening to the accents of the adults around them.

    Vocal Organs

    • Birds possess a unique vocal organ called the syrinx, which allows them to produce a myriad of musical notes. However, unlike human beings who have only one voice box, songbirds have two voice boxes. This set-up gives them the ability to produce two different notes at once, with each syrinx sounding at the same time. By practising what they hear, baby birds learn to produce the proper sounds from these organs.