Birds living in cities are performing a type of "avian rap" while their rural counterparts are sticking to more traditional sounds, a study shows.

Dutch researchers found that urban species of birds sing short, fast songs rather than the slower melodies of countryside birds.

City birds also sing at a higher pitch and will try out different song types.

Experts said city birds have adapted to counter background noise and increase their chances of finding a mate.

Varied songs

The research focused on great tits in ten major European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, and compared them to forest-dwellers.

In every comparison city birds sang a more varied array of songs, which were short and had higher minimum frequencies.

Urban tits consistently experimented with between one and five note calls, while those in forests close to the cities stuck to more normal combinations of two, three and four note tunes, the research found.

The study even gives the example of one Rotterdam great tit attempting a 16-note song, possibly copied from a blue tit.

Territory

The study, by a team of researchers from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, is the first to establish a Europe-wide pattern of diverging birdsong.

Study leaders said birds had developed shorter, more varied, higher pitched sounds to make themselves heard above trains, aircraft and road traffic.

Male birds use their song to mark their territory. If their song is not heard they may come face to face with rivals and end up having to fight them off, the experts said.

Attracting females

They also use song to attract mates and have had to adapt to make sure they are heard by females.

The research paper, published in the journal Current Biology, said: "Our data show that the adjustment of individual great tits to local noise conditions is not a local phenomenon but occurs throughout Europe and probably in all noisy urban areas.

It went on: "Urban birds often experience very noisy conditions while singing, which may influence the efficacy of their acoustic signals.

"Male birds typically sing to defend a territory and to attract mates.

"If their song is not heard by the targeted audience they have to physically fight off intruders, and attracting females may be difficult."



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Varied songs

The research focused on great tits in ten major European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, and compared them to forest-dwellers.

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Huh?????

Not Yours. It's a bird.

Yeah, and there is another website called something like nicetits or lovelytits and its about tits (the birds).

This is the sort of posdting I'd like to see more of in this board. Not because it is more important than politics or sports or mothers that are a danger to their childrens, but because it is the sort of posting that engages my mind. I swear to Christ for the last several years I've walked the trails at Quail Hollw State park and heard the song of bird I couldn't quite see who I was certain was imitating a cell phone it had heard. It was a roiling chaotic tinny trill that sounded unnaturalk. Nobody was ever around on the trails when I heard it and certtainly no park employees. I tried to describe the sound to a park ermployyee in the hope he knew what bird it might be, but he just kind of said he had no idea and looked at me like I was asking an inapprpriate question.

Does this mean the bird outside my window is a little feathered Guapo?

this is what my girl nattie looks like, if she had all her feathers. also, lamentably, she can't get down like this, either.

dude, lovebirds are crazy. fortunately, nattie has never given any such indications.



not to be too much of a geek, but you really don't want to let your bird get so close to a cat like that. cat saliva is toxic to birds, so they say.