Média Médiums

Almost half of the bird species on Earth are songbirds. The diversity of songbird species implies a huge diversity of songs. The tit warbles, the sparrow chirps, the blackbird whistles. Common to gardens as well as rainforests, songbirds fill up the soundscape and have intrigued humans over the ages. Only since the mid-twentieth century, and its technical advances, have songbirds and their singing behavior been investigated. The songs of songbirds are socially learned by imitation. An individual, usually a juvenile, memorizes the song of a model, generally of an adult, before practicing its own song. Learning by songbirds is thus similar to speech and language acquisition in humans. It is a rarity within the animal kingdom, explaining why songbirds are now widely studied. The domains in which research is conducted on songbirds includes not merely thier behavioral aspects (such as function and use of songs, recognition amongst individuals) but also neurobiological aspects (what neuronal mechanisms are involved