Book 31, Question 78
How do young songbirds learn their songs?
Many songbirds are not born knowing their songs.
A young bird listens closely to adults singing nearby. Then it starts to practice quiet, wobbly sounds called subsong, a bit like a baby babbling. Over weeks, the sounds become more exact until the song matches what the bird heard. A bird raised alone, without hearing others, often sings a plain and strange song.
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Quick answers
How do young songbirds learn their songs?
Learning happens during a sensitive phase in which juveniles first memorize the songs of adult conspecifics, and subsequently practice and develop their own song.
Source: National Institutes of Health
More fun facts
- Male zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata , acquire their song during a sensitive period for auditory-vocal learning by imitating conspecific birds.
- Social interaction could encourage the young bird to pay attention to the tutor’s song, which positively contributes to the song memorization process.
- All except one juvenile that could both see and interact with the tutor successfully learned his song, while juveniles in the other groups showed significantly less learning from the song tutor.
- Studies that compare various methods of training young zebra finches have also shown that active involvement in the song learning process enhances the ability for juvenile zebra finches to form accurate song copies.
Sources: National Institutes of Health
Questions kids ask
Can a young bird learn a song just by hearing it?
Juvenile males that could hear their tutor but could not interact with him were unable to learn the tutor’s song.
Source: National Institutes of Health