Why Birds Make So Many Different Sounds

Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have conducted the world’s first global study of bird songs.

They want to understand what factors influence the diversity of sounds that birds make.

The study used more than 100,000 recordings of bird calls from around the world. The work was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society (PRSB).

The study found that birds living in noisy ecosystems, such as coastal areas with fast-flowing waters, tend to make higher-pitched calls to avoid being drowned out by the surrounding noise.

In addition, it was found that birds living at the same latitudes have similar sounds, indicating that geography plays an important role in the evolution of bird songs.

It was also confirmed that body size and beak shape affect the sounds they make: small birds tend to make higher-pitched sounds, while larger ones produce low-frequency sounds.

Moreover, scientists have discovered that small birds can produce sounds in a wider frequency range, which helps them survive.

High frequencies allow birds to communicate with their relatives, while low frequencies can mask them from predators, creating the illusion of a larger size.

According to scientists, the discovery can be useful for studying soundscapes, which are actively used in ecological research.

For example, if there are no low-frequency sounds in the tropics, this may indicate active hunting of large birds.